Preamble

The House met at Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Clyde Navigation Bill (by Order),

Second Reading deferred till Monday next.

Marriages Provisional Orders Bill, Ministry of Health Provisional Order (Middlesbrough Extension) Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

NEW WRIT.

for County of Lanark (Northern Division), in the room of Colonel Sir Alexander Sprot, Baronet, deceased—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS.

The following questions stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy:

2. To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer the number of claims preferred by British seamen for compensation for injuries received by enemy action in the late war, and how many of these claims have been settled in full.

3. To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total amount of the claims of British seamen for injuries received by enemy action in the late War; what amount of money has been paid out in settlement of these claims; and what amount remains in hand for further payments in settlement of such claims.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: On a point of Order. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury is present, but I do not think that he is going to answer my questions. I should like to know whether I can have an answer before the Debate on the second Order for to-day:—Supply Committee, Civil Estimates, Revised Supplementary Estimate, 1928. I put down
the questions in order to get some information for the purposes of the Debate.

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Arthur Michael Samuel): I will make inquiries, and, if possible, I will let the hon. and gallant Member have the information in time.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: On a point of Order. Is it not usual on Friday that, if a Minister does not choose to answer a question orally, he sends a written answer almost immediately? I should like to be sure, on this occasion, of having the information for the Debate on the second Order.

Mr. SPEAKER: On Fridays, there is no obligation upon a Minister to give an oral reply.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I was only asking that I might have the information as soon as possible. It is important that I should get the figures.

Mr. SAMUEL: The subject matter of the questions does not come under my Department. I understand that it concerns the Board of Trade and that the Board of Trade are sending the information to the hon. and gallant Member.

QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE.

Mr. GROTRIAN: I desire to call your attention, Mr. Speaker, and the attention of this House, to a gross libel that has been published upon the Chairman of Ways and Means, and to move a Motion in connection therewith. The libel is contained in an article purporting to have been written by the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough (Miss Wilkinson) and is contained in a paper called the "New Leader," under date 1st March, that is, to-day.

Mr. TINKER: On a point of Order. Has the hon. and learned Member notified the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough (Miss Wilkinson) that he intended to raise this question?

Mr GROTRIAN: I have not been able to notify the hon. Member. This libel has only just been published. It was brought to my notice late last night, and I understand that it is the practice of the House that these things must be brought to the immediate attention of
Mr. Speaker. Perhaps the House will allow me to read one or two short passages, in order to justify the Motion which I am going to move.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: On a point of Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. and learned Member, but I understand that the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough (Miss Wilkinson) is away owing to a family bereavement. I believe it is the practice of the House that such a question of Privilege must be raised immediately, and I do not want to deprive the hon. and learned Member for South West Hull (Mr. Grotrian) of his rights in that matter, but may I ask whether his rights could be safeguarded and also an opportunity given to the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough to be present, on the old principle that no one should be adjudged in their absence, if their presence is possible.

Mr. SPEAKER: Under our Rules, it is necessary that these questions of Privilege should be brought to the attention of the House at the earliest possible moment. Hon. Members will realise the difficulty of always securing the presence of the particular Member who is affected, or of notifying such Member. That is rather a difficult thing to do, particularly when, as in this case, the matter only comes out on the morning of the day when the House is sitting, and that on a Friday when the House meets at eleven o'clock. I should be very loath that, in the unavoidable and regrettable absence of the hon. Lady who represents East Middlesbrough (Miss Wilkinson), any action should be taken or anything done. No doubt, that could be overcome by a Motion "That the Debate be adjourned," so that the hon. Member might be in her place.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Commander Eyres-Monsell): Directly my hon. and learned Friend had established his claim, I was going to move the adjournment of the debate. One sympathises with the hon. Lady, and we all regret the reason for her absence. Directly the claim of my hon. and learned Friend has been established, I propose to move the adjournment of the debate, until Monday.

Mr. GROTRIAN: I extremely regret the circumstances which have caused me
to raise this question in the absence of the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough, but, of course, her rights no doubt will be amply safeguarded by you, Mr. Speaker. I was about to read one or two short passages from the article. The first paragraph is headed:

OUR PARTISAN CHAIRMAN.

"This contempt for the Constitution of the House of Commons was shown in a marked way by the Chairman of Ways and Means in a ruling of so partisan a character that it would take one's breath away, if the Tory Government had riot, by this time, almost exhausted one's capacity for indignation."

She goes on, or the articles goes on, to criticise the ruling of the Chairman in the case of the Derby Corporation Bill, which will be fresh in the memory of hon. Members opposite. The article then says —I do not propose to read any other passages —
What kind of ruling is this? What possible respect can be left for a Chairman who so completely flouts the Rules of Order?

On these facts I beg to move:
That the article purporting to be written by the hon. Member for East Middlesbrough and published in the "New Leader" newspaper of the 1st March is a gross libel on the Chairman of Ways and Means, and a grave breach of the Privileges of this House.

Colonel Sir KENYON VAUGHANMORGAN: I beg to second the Motion.

Mr. RAMSAY MacDONALD: I am sure that no hon. Member of this House, acquainted with its Rules, would object to the action that the hon. and learned Member opposite has taken. He is bound, under the Rules of the House, to draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to what he considers, rightly or wrongly, a gross libel upon the Privileges of this House, at the very earliest possible opportunity, and that is now. At the same time, as the Chief Whip so justly said, I feel perfectly certain that, without passing any judgment or making any observation upon the matter, of which I heard only at this very moment —I have not seen the article, and I had no notice that this matter was coming up—under the circumstances, it would be better if the House accepted the Motion which I understand the Patronage Secretary is about to move.

Commander EYRES MONSELL: I beg to move, "That the Debate be now adjourned."

Question put, and agreed to.

Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.

DUSTRIAL ASSURANCE AND FRIENDLY SOCIETIES BILL,

"to permit the issue by friendly societies and industrial assurance companies of policies of assurance on the duration of certain lives for a specified period; to validate certain endowment policies issued by such societies and companies; to exclude repayments of premiums under endowment policies from the computation of the maximum sums which may be paid on death by such societies and companies; and to make provision as to the rights of owners of certain endowment policies upon the surrender thereof," presented by Mr. Arthur Michael Samuel; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 66.]

Orders of the Day — UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE (NORTHERN IRELAND AGREEMENT) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the, Bill be now read a Second time."—[Mr. I. M. Samuel.]

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I beg to move to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof the words:
this House, whilst willing to render financial assistance to meet the deficit in the Unemployment insurance Fund of Northern Ireland in order to safeguard the rights of unemployed insured persons, cannot assent to a Bill which would establish permanently an unfair differentiation in the, methods of dealing with the respective deficits in the Unemployment Insurance Funds of this Country and of Northern Ireland.
During all the years of this Parliament I have imagined that there was nothing worse than having to deal with a Tory Government, but since I have read this Bill I have come to the conclusion that I was mistaken. There is something worse than having to deal with one Tory Government, and that is having to deal with two Tory Governments. These two Tory Governments seem to me to have a number of points in common. In the first place they are under the illusion that they are fit to govern and that, no one else is. In the second place, they have both succeeded in bringing the industrial affairs of the country they govern into a perilous condition. In the third place, when their working people need relief both these two governments look to the charity of other people to put the matter right. This particular Bill is a kind of conspiracy between these two Tory governments, and we can well imagine what is, in fact, the case, that it is worse than either of them separately.
What has been the song of the Ulster Tories all along? They have dinned into our ears for generations past that they did not wish to be associated with the government of the people of Southern Ireland, because although delightful personally they were so unbusinesslike. In financial matters they were mere
children, whereas the people of Northern Ireland were shrewd, common-sense business men, and so the people of Southern Ireland could be counted upon to land a united country in a position of financial ruin. In order that the position in Northern Ireland might be safeguarded and their businesslike qualities not interfered with they could not associate with the people of Southern Ireland. When the separation took place the Northern Ireland Tories told us privately and publicly, "You have only to wait a little while and you will find the finances of Southern Ireland on the rocks, whereas our position is impregnable." The position to-day reminds me of a famous passage in Goldsmith's poems, and I would say to them:
But soon a wonder came to light
Which showed the rogues they lied;
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.
At the present time, we have this position, that the Free State is going along very happily but the Ulster Parliament is coming to the British Treasury and making this ad misericordiam appeal which is embodied in this Bill. They tell us that they are the business like section of Ireland. We can only say that, as a matter of fact, it has not worked out in the way they suggested. The Ulster Government have to come to the British Government for a dole. What is the attitude of the British Government when some unfortunate persons in this country, through no fault of their own, find that they are not able to make ends meet, that their wife and children are in straitened circumstances, and short of the necessaries of life? They say, "It may be it is not your own fault. It may be we have to help you, but there are certain things we insist upon. In the first place, we are going to have a long inquisition into why you have got into this position. We are going to ask you all sorts of questions, and investigate your position to the full. In the second place, we can only dole out a few shillings at a time. We shall make rigid conditions as to the future, and if you are an able-bodied workman you are only going to get relief in the form of a loan. We will make no promise as to the future."
I should like to contrast the attitude of the British Government towards the unfortunate people in our own country with
their attitude towards the government of Ulster. In the first place, they ask no questions as to what steps have been taken in the past to relieve unemployment. We have spent a great deal of money in this country, a very large amount, in order to prevent unemployment arising. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer has in many cases interfered with some of the developments we should like to have seen under the Road Fund, but, nevertheless, whatever Government has been in power considerable schemes have been undertaken. What steps have the Government of Lister taken on a scale commensurate with those in this country? I see little signs that they have put through any inquiries as to schemes of this kind. In the second place, the Government, instead of putting the amount in the form of a loan, are proposing to make a free grant and with a kind of lordly gesture they scorn to ask for the money back, because the Ulster Government are not able to afford it. With regard to the future they make no conditions as to the particular methods the Government of Ulster will take to deal with the matter of unemployment. I am not saying that they do not, as far as the actual unemployment insurance scheme is concerned, say that it shall be administered in the same way; that is part of the bargain. I am referring to other action.
Then there is the astonishing provision, the most outrageous provision of all. They give a promise to go on paying this money for ever, not merely for a certain number of years. Not merely is it to be a free gift, but it is to go on indefinitely, and, to make sure that it shall, they tie it up in the form of an agreement which they believe will be proof against any alteration by any of their successors. That is a most outrageous thing to ask this House of Commons to do. This Government, which is admittedly approaching the time when it will have to seek the suffrages of the electorate, is like the unjust steward, at a time when it knows its dismissal is imminent; it is proposing to deal improperly with its master's property, the master of the Government being, of course, the nation which it professes to serve.
What is our position with regard to this matter? In the first place I would remind hon. Gentlemen opposite that we
here are not responsible for the muddle with regard to Ireland. We, unlike some of them, did not foment the feud between North and South Ireland; we did not create the settlement which resulted in segregating a small territory which the Financial Secretary told us was inadequate as a basis for this insurance fund; we did not carry out the financial policy either in this country or in Northern Ireland out of which has come the industrial stagnation that is seen in the shipping and textile industries of both parts of the British Empire. Nevertheless, when Ulster comes to us and says; "We cannot find the money, our workpeople will starve or go without their benefit unless some additional money is found," we on these Benches do not for a moment say that that money must; not be found. We recognise that, whoever is to blame for the present situation, whatever the circumstances which have been its origin, it is essential that the money shall be available in order that the workpeople who are out of work through no fault of their own—we have equal feeling for these, whether they be in Ulster or in the industrial areas in our own country—may receive benefit.
We say that money has to be found, and that if there is no one else to find it, it must be found out of this Exchequer, but we are not prepared to find it on the conditions which are set forth in this Bill, because those conditions are thoroughly unjust to the taxpayers of this country. We see no reason why this money should be made a free gift. We do not make a free gift to our own unemployment fund. We provide the money on loan and there is no reason why the taxpayers of this country, who lend their money to the Unemployment Insurance fund of this country, should be called upon to give their money to the Unemployment Insurance fund in Ireland. We regard such a proposal as fundamentally unjust. In the second place, we are entirely opposed to making this agreement in perpetuity. It seems to us an outrage upon the rights of Parliament that we should be precluded, through the form in which this thing has been done, from deciding in future how the money should be found. It may be that in days to come and for some years ahead it will be necessary to go on pay-
ing, out of our Exchequer, money to help the distressed position in Ireland, but it is absolutely unconstitutional to tie down our Exchequer and to pay money out of the Consolidated Fund for an indefinite period in order to meet this charge. We point out also the very great dangers of this course of action.
There is this further point: This agreement professes to be bilateral. Everyone who knows anything about the practical working of the scheme knows that in practice it is not bilateral at all. The bilateral form of the agreement is a sort of consideration in the contract. If it was not bilateral in form it would be recognised for what it is—a dole to the Ulster Government. It may be necessary, but it is a dole nevertheless. But because of the bilateral form, it appears to have a certain amount of give-and-take in it. It has no bilateral character in reality. When this subject was before the House in 1926, the Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted, when driven to it, that it was only in form chat this was bilateral, that in fact it was unilateral, and that this country was never likely to get any of the return advantage which this agreement professes to give.
There is a final point. People are under the impression that this agreement operates only when there is actually a loss on the Irish Fund. As a matter of fact the agreement will continue to operate even when the Irish Fund is paying its way, provided that the unemployment in this country is less than that in Northern Ireland. The Irish Government may be actually in funds over this thing and yet receive a dole from the Government of this country. That was dealt with when the original Bill was before the House, and it is not necessary to go aver the technical details again. To sum up, we are not prepared on this side of the House to tolerate the unconstitutional and disgraceful bargain which our Government has made. If the workpeople of Northern Ireland require this money, they must have it. If the Ulster finances are in such a position that the money cannot be found, we recognise that rather than starve and keep out of benefit the workpeople in Northern Ireland, we in this country must put our hands into our pockets and pay what is necessary, but
we are not prepared to do it on the terms and conditions which are set out in this Bill.

Mr. KELLY: I beg to second the Admendment.
I do so although I represent a great many men who work in the factories and yards of Northern Ireland. I have wondered why it is that this Government differentiate between Unemployment Insurance in this country and Unemployment Insurance in Northern Ireland. When on occasions we have asked for some aid for this country, we have been told that the Exchequer cannot find the money, or that we can have the money for payment of benefit only on condition that we are prepared to pay back principal and interest. In fact the bargain is one that could he secured from any moneylender in the City of London. When it comes to Northern Ireland, quite a different attitude is taken up by the Government, and for some reason that we have not had explained to us, the Government are prepared not only to pay over the money, but actually, whilst the agreement is in operation—an agreement which does not expire for nearly 13 months—they are prepared to wipe out part of the liability, amounting to £424,000, so far as Northern Ireland is concerned.
I hope that we shall be told to-day why there is this different treatment for the people of this country and the people of Northern Ireland. Not only are they prepared to begin the wiping out of this liability, but they are not prepared to do something for Northern Ireland which they have refused to do for this country. In March of each succeeding year until that liability of £3,424,000 is wiped out, the Exchequer is prepared to pay a sum of £100,000. If the industries of Northern Ireland, if the people of Northern Ireland, require assistance the Government might at least be straightforward in the matter. They might say that they intend to make a grant to Northern Ireland in order to help in relieving distress there. But they are not prepared to deal with the matter in that straightforward manner. They propose to give this assistance to the insurance fund of Northern Ireland by a method which is refused to us in this country. I recognise to the full the difficulties which are to be found in Northern Ireland. I know
of the depression there, but I ask the Financial Secretary what effort has been made by the Parliament and Government of Northern Ireland to meet a situation with which they knew they would be faced.
As one who has never agreed with the contributory system of unemployment insurance I cannot understand why the imposition of this cost upon industries is continued. I have not had time to go into the figures with regard to shipyards, engineering shops, tobacco factories and the artificial silk factory which is now I believe reaching production stage if it has not already reached that stage. I have not been able to ascertain what these industries in Northern Ireland pay in the matter of contributions, but I know what is paid in this country, and I ask why the Treasury which is so anxious to help Northern Ireland, cannot ease the burden on some of our own industries here? I take, for example, the textile trade of which we heard so much when the Financial Resolution was before us. We find that contributions for unemployment insurance, so far as the textile trades are concerned, amount to over £1,000,000 or nearly £1,500,000, but when we ask for assistance it is refused to us. In the woollen and worsted trades over £600,000 is taken in contributions from employers and employed. Of course, I realise that it all comes out of wages. When I ask for an advance of wages I am refused it because of the heavy cost which the employers find imposed upon them by the payments towards the unemployment insurance scheme. In the engineering trade at least £750,000 a year is paid. But there is a differentiation. The Government refuse to help those industries in this country, but is quite prepared to help the industries in Northern Ireland. We have been told, time and time again, by the Government and by supporters of the Government that the scheme is an insurance scheme. Is it still to be called an insurance scheme, now that the Government have to find £400,000 this month, to be followed by £100,000 a year?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Arthur Michael Samuel): I am not quite certain that I follow the hon. Member's statement.
What exactly does he mean when he says that we have to find £400,000 this month?

Mr. KELLY: In the Schedule to this Bill we find it set out that the Government of Northern Ireland will on 31st March, 1929, write off the sum of £424,434—for which assistance is being given from this country.

Mr. REID: No.

Mr. KELLY: That is to be followed by £100,000 a year from the Consolidated Fund until the excess liability is extinguished.

Mr. REID: No. I think the hon. Member has it wrong.

Mr. KELLY: Is the suggestion made by the representatives of Northern Ireland that there is no money being paid by the Exchequer of this country? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Is the suggestion that we are engaged in passing a Bill which does not transfer any moneys to relieve this excess liability? Is it suggested that no money is to pass from the Exchequer of this country to Northern Ireland for the purposes of unemployment insurance?

Mr. REID: I did not say that.

Captain CRAIG: We do not make any such statement. What we say is that there is already a debt of £3,400,000, in round figures. That debt has been incurred by the Northern Ireland Government and every penny of that sum has to be paid back. A sum of £400,000, roughly, is to be paid off at once, and the £3,000,000 remaining is to be paid off at the rate of £100,000 a year for the next 30 years.

Mr. SNOWDEN: But is it not the fact that the Imperial Exchequer is making a contribution of £113,000 a year towards the interest upon this?

Captain CRAIG: Is that so?

Mr. SNOWDEN: Yes.

Mr. REID: But the point raised by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Kelly) was on the question of the capital sum of £3,424,000. What my hon. Friend has said about that sum being paid off entirely by the Government of Northern Ireland is quite correct.

Mr. SNOWDEN: But he said nothing about the interest.

Mr. KELLY: I think it has been made very clear that a Bill of this kind has not been brought forward for any purpose other than that of passing money from this country into the fund of Northern Ireland.

Mr. SOMERVILLE: But not £400,000.

Mr. KELLY: As recently as Monday of this week the Financial Secretary was asked if, in view of the position of unemployment in this country the Treasury were prepared to consider the cancellation of any part of the debt which is so burdensome upon industry. His reply was very definite. It was that as far as Great Britain is concerned the Treasury is not prepared even to consider legislating for the purpose of cancelling any of the debt which has to be found by the various industries in this country. I wonder whether the Treasury has satisfied itself as to the real position with regard to unemployment insurance in Northern Ireland. I hope it will. Recently, in making an inquiry with regard to unemployment insurance in Belfast, I found that there were no signatures at all obtained by the Department and that the word of employers was taken as to people being unemployed. In this country, benefit is not paid on such flimsy statements as those. In fact, we are harassed by the many signatures which are required, and I wonder whether or not some of this money is being used for the purpose of subsidising industry in that particular part of the world,
Why has there been this unseemly haste in entering into this agreement? I notice that this draft agreement was signed in December last, despite the fact that under the Act of 1920 that agreement of 1920 should continue until the end of March of next year. This Government does not usually help us, with regard to finances dealing with workmen's problems, by removing our anxiety 12 months ahead of the time when an agreement should expire, but in the case of Northern Ireland, for some reason which I think the Government will find it difficult to explain, except on the lines suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for West Leicester (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence), they have decided, in 31st March of this year, to enter into an agreement which will enter into operation after. March
of next year. I hope that now they are thinking of relieving the anxieties of Northern Ireland they will have the decency to consider relieving the anxieties of industry and of the unemployed in this country, by helping us with regard to the benefits that ought to be at the call of those who are unemployed.
In Great Britain everything possible is done by the Department to drive people out of benefit, but when it comes to Northern Ireland, without having any control over that Fund, without understanding the method of its administration, without Northern Ireland being bound down by the decisions of the umpire in Great Britain, having, I believe, its own umpire—at least, it had —they are quite prepared to enter into this agreement. I think it is for fear lest there might be another Government in power in this country within a few months, which would deal with that; problem, I hope, in a sensible way. For all of these reasons, although, as we say in our Amendment, we are willing to render financial assistance to meet the deficit, so as not to deprive the unemployed of their benefit, yet, because of this unfair differentiation between the methods in Ireland and in Great Britain, we hope the Second Reading of the Bill will be refused by this House to-day.

Mr. JAMES HUDSON: I am naturally surprised that there has not been anyone on the other side willing to meet the arguments that have been so well put forward by my two hon. Friends. I thought that someone, at any rate from the Northern Irish constituencies, would have been willing to put the case in reply, but as that is not so, may I say a few words in reinforcement of the arguments used by my colleagues? I have been interested to observe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was, for a few short moments, on the Treasury Bench, watching the troubled waters and the possibilities of further fishing expeditions, but that, looking over on to these benches and seeing that there are no more fish left to catch, and that it is hardly likely that we shall spring again to the fly that he threw, he has departed on his way and left us and his colleagues to deal with the situation.
The position that we are faced with is this, that there is a large body of unemployed in Northern Ireland. We know
the condition of the linen industry and of the shipbuilding industry, and we realise that the lot of those workers is one that commands, and must command, the attention of this House and that they ought to be properly provided for by an effective insurance scheme. We, on these benches, are fully prepared, as indicated by our Amendment, that their proper maintenance should continue and we are desirous that the loan that is applied in connection with our scheme in England should be applied to the scheme in Ireland and that, as long as those men's or women's needs are not met, the loan should continue to be raised in order to assist those workers in Ireland who are so badly placed by the industrial situation there. But I would say, in passing, that that industrial situation in Ireland is closely wrapped up with the political agreement that has been arrived at. Ireland is one of the nations, in common with many other nations in Europe, that have had to suffer partition. Its economic interests are very badly divided, and it is very probable that Ireland will never effectively get out of its present economic distresses until Ireland, particularly Northern Ireland, learns to look in new directions for a settlement of her difficulties.
What hon. Members opposite are doing to-day is to press the Tory Government to bolster up, by unjustifiable and outright grants, a system which, if the people and the Governments of Ireland were left to face it, might more quickly readjust itself to the economic conditions that prevail there. It was suggested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. W. Graham) three years ago, when this matter was then being discussed, that the basis of the Insurance Acts in Ireland might be extended. For example, there are certain industries in Northern Ireland that are not now included in the Insurance Acts of that country, and very probably, if we insisted on the Northern Government meeting the consequences of the loan which we are willing should continue to be paid, the Northern Government would then be more willing to spread the burdens; upon other parts of the Northern Ireland population than is the case at the present time.
As I tried to indicate the other day when we were discussing this matter, the Northern Government, by getting outright grants, by dodging the responibility of providing the interest upon the loan, are letting off from taxation certain elements in their country who ought to be bearing the burdens which they are foisting on to us by this particular process. Mark that they are putting this burden upon us at a moment when our Fund is bearing a debt of £40,000,000, a debt which, if this Government were to continue much longer would be likely to increase rather than decrease. At the same time that this is happening here, we make an arrangement by which the. Government of Northern Ireland may continue year after year dodging the responsibilities which that Government ought to face. It is highly likely that in this country, after the next General Election, we shall have a Government in England which, by the provision of effective schemes of reconstructive work, will take off the Unemployment Fund large numbers of men who now are drawing from that Fund; but if the Government of Northern Ireland fail to keep step with the progress which we anticipate will be made here, they will continue with this special benefit that we are making to them as an incentive not to do the things which, I believe, we in this country in a year or two from now will be carrying through.
I submit that that, in a way, is perhaps the worst part of the dodge that is now being played off the House of Commons. Both the Tory Government in Northern Ireland and the Tory Government in England know that we are facing a period in England and Scotland in which we are likely to face constructive work for our unemployed, and here we are giving carte blanche to the Northern Government of Ireland to enable them to go on with the same ineffective economic organisation that now exists in that country. I repeal that we are willing, nay anxious, that the unemployed, wherever they be, whether in this country or in Ireland, shall have provided for them an effective arrangement by which they can get either work or proper maintenance. We have drawn our Amendment, with that point of view in our minds, but have to consider the sort of process that this Government adopt, towards our own unemployed. I
have received this morning information of a man in my own constituency who has paid year after year to the Unemployment Insurance Fund, and who, for the first time, comes on to that Fund hoping to receive from it, as the Fund provides, certain help for himself and his wife, and because there happens to be in his household a relative who is paying for lodgings in the house, a judgment is given that the wife's maintenance shall be withdrawn. That incident is repeated a thousandfold throughout our country at the present moment. Our own people have been paying into the Insurance Fund. It is no question of making them a loan. It is no question of making them a grant. It is a question of their receiving back from the Insurance Fund money which they have paid into that Fund, but their rights are disregarded by a Government who are glad to pay over millions 'to this friendly Government in Northern Ireland to help them to avoid the responsibility which they ought to meet. I have very much pleasure in supporting the Amendment.

12.n.

Captain CRAIG: I do not complain that hon. Members opposite have taken the opportunity of using the subject we are discussing to-day as a peg on which to hang a Home Rule Debate. They have not very many opportunities nowadays of discussing Irish affairs, and when they get such an opportunity, I observe that they invariably make use of it to drag in the Home Rule question. The hon. Member who moved this Amendment took us away into comparisons between what is happening in Ulster and in the Free State. I say that that has nothing whatever to do with the matter before the House to-day, and I propose, in the few remarks I make, to leave such questions severely alone. First of all, I may say that one reason why none of my colleagues or I have risen before now is that the Debate we have had to-day is almost a repetition of the Debate we had a few days ago on the Financial Resolution on which this Bill is founded, and, really, anything that is said to-day is only a waste of time. It has already been said in this House. However, hon. Members have insisted on having a repetition. I would like to ask the House to remember
what has happened in this Debate. There is general agreement, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) has himself admitted, that it would be much better, and much fairer, to everybody if unemployment insurance had been made a reserved service when the Act of 1920 was passed.
That, I maintain, is a sufficient justification for everything for which we have asked. Unemployment insurance was, unfortunately, not made a reserved service. It was not our fault that this was not done. I do not say that it was the fault of anybody, because, the position with regard to unemployment insurance in 1920 was quite different from what it is to-day. In those days there were far fewer insurable people, and the outlook, from the point of view of trade, was very different from what it has been since. With whomsoever the fault lay, it was arranged at the time that unemployment insurance should be handed over to the Northern Irish Government. Everybody has since admitted that that was a mistake, and the people in Northern Ireland and the Government of Northern Ireland have suffered severely for that mistake. It is generally agreed, as I have said, that it was not their fault—certainly not their fault any more than that of anybody else, because we had no opportunity at the time of knowing the effect of handing over unemployment insurance to them, nor had we the statistics on which to base a proper judgment. The fact remains that it was handed over to them. Unfortunately, as trade began to go down, the effect of having to finance their own unemployment insurance was very severely felt, and, to put the matter very shortly, the result of a few years' working before the agreement of 1926 was entered into, was that the Government of Northern Ireland had contracted a debt of £3,400,000.
I would ask the House to remember that if what the Ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer now says ought to have been done when the Act of 1920 setting up the Government of Northern Ireland was passed, had been done, Northern Ireland would not have been responsible for that large sum. She is now in somewhat the same position as England in the matter of unemployment insurance, but owing to a mistake that was made eight
years ago site finds herself saddled with a debt of 23,400,000. Everybody agreed that that was unfortunate, and that the Northern Irish Government could not go on piling up a debt at the rate at which that debt had accumulated. Something had to be done, and the Northern Ireland Government represented to the Treasury the condition of affairs. Everybody felt that it was a misfortune that unemployment insurance in Northern Ireland had been separated from that of Great Britain, and they also agreed that in Ireland the same benefit should be given to the unemployed as in this country. Since the Northern Ireland Government was set up, it has always been its desire to treat workmen, and indeed everybody else in the matter of legislation and benefit, precisely on the same level as similar people are treated in this country, and all their requests to sod negotiations with this country in this matter have been with that object in view. Everybody knows that if the Northern Ireland Government do not get the help which they are asking, it will be impossible to go on paying at this rate, and that a lower rate of benefit will have to be paid to the unemployed in that country, a state of affairs which the House of Commons would he very sorry to see.
That being so, what are the main objections of hon. Members opposite? They hope that the unemployed in Northern Ireland will continue to receive benefits as at present, and at the same rate. One of their main objections is apparently that this country is making a further grant to Ireland. It is making a grant to a certain extent, but not so much as is thought by hon. Members. We have incurred a debt of nearly £3,400,000, and that debt is to be paid off in 30 years. The right hon. Gentleman reminds me that £113,000 is to be paid as interest on that sum by this country; that is true, and I suppose that we must look at that as a further grant, but hon. Members must remember that the £3,400,000 is a diminishing quantity. It will be diminished by £400,000 on the passing of this Bill, and at the late of £100,000 a year afterwards. At the end of 30 years, there will be no interest to be paid, and the amount of interest will diminish every year. Northern
Ireland, on the other hand, will be paying £100,000 a year to liquidate that debt. I admit that the Imperial Exchequer is bearing the interest, but we are paying off a debt which everybody admits that we should not have had to pay at all if this matter had been handled properly when the Northern Ireland Government was set up.
Hon. Members complain that the agreement is being made permanent, instead of our having to come to this House from time to time to ask for the agreement to be renewed. It is not unreasonable, when it is admitted that the condition of affairs is the result of a state of things for which we are not responsible, that this should be put on a permanent footing. It would put the Northern Ireland Government in a very awkward position if they had to come here every year or every second year to have the agreement confirmed and renewed. They could never be certain what attitude the House of Commons would take, or be able to look forward with any certainty, and it would hamper them in many ways. One of the objections to putting this on a permanent footing is that hon. Members are doubtful how the unemployed insurance might be, administered in Northern Ireland, understand that the agreement provides that the Treasury in this country shall have the fullest power of supervising and examining the books and the actions of everybody connected with the administration of the fund in Northern Ireland. I can assure hon. Members that the unemployment insurance administration will be just as good in Northern Ireland as it is here. Neither the Government nor the employers are in the least anxious to administer that fund badly. I cannot see. How they could do so when they would be hurting their own pockets, and as they are a hard-headed people, that is the last thing that they would want to do. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated the other day that he would like to see these two funds amalgamated, and in fact to see unemployment insurance turned into a reserved service. That was, I think, acquiesced in by my right hon. Friend the Member for Calne Valley (Mr. Snowden).

Mr. SNOWDEN: I did not commit myself to an amalgamation of the two funds,
but confined myself to saying that, in view of the common nature of employment in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, it would have been better if unemployment insurance had been kept as a reserved service when the Northern Parliament was set up.

Captain CRAIG: I did not intend to create the impression that the right hon. Gentleman actually said so, but I thought that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he would like to see the two funds amalgamated again, at least the right hon. Gentleman did not raise any objection to the suggestion. It was pointed out that unfortunately that could not he done for some reason which the non-Treasury mind cannot grasp. There are apparently administrative, financial, and other difficulties that render it impossible, and this agreement, I understand, is the nearest thing to an amalgamation of the funds that can be done. To put the whole matter shortly, the Northern Government have found themselves in a very difficult position for some years, owing to the fact that this fund was not kept as a reserved service. They have suffered to the extent of a debt of £3,400,000 for that mistake. They find—and the House, I believe, agrees that what they put forward is true—that they cannot go on with that enormous debt, and they come to the House to ask them to rectify a mistake, which was a perfectly bona fide mistake, and to put them in as nearly as possible the position in which they would be if the two insurance funds had not been separated.
Hon. Members opposite seem to imagine that the Northern Ireland Government are getting out of this mistake free; not at all. They have to repay this debt, and they have also undertaken to shoulder a burden of a quarter of any annual sum which it may be necessary to get from this country to make up the balance of what is required to meet the needs of the Unemployment Insurance Fund in Ireland. That is a very considerable punishment. I hope that latter sum will not be very large. I do not think the statement of one of the hon. Members opposite that this is a unilateral agreement, and not a bilateral agreement, is fair. Until 1914 Northern Ireland was much freer from
unemployment than this country was, and I see no reason why we should not revert to that happy state of affairs in a few years. The only thing standing in the way at present is the slackness of work in the shipbuilding yards, and the deplorable state of unemployment in the linen trade.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: The point that this agreement is, in effect, unilateral does not rest on the supposition that unemployment in Ireland is never likely to be less than unemployment in this country. It depends on the fact that in England we meet our unemployment burdens by way of loan. So long as we do that, this agreement can never become operative in favour of this country, and if the right hon. and gallant Member doubts that I would refer him to what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in the Debates of 1926.

Captain CRAIG: I am afraid the hon. Member has more of what I call a "Treasury head" than I have, and I do not quite follow his remarks. I have not much of a "Treasury head," but I can see the rights and wrongs of this question, and I am very certain that in what we are asking we are not unreasonable. I hope that it will not be many years before the linen trade is again in a prosperous condition, and when that state of affairs arrives we shall be no burden on this country at all, so far as annual payments are concerned. I hope the House will not accept the Amendment.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: The right hon. and gallant Member for Antrim (Capt. Craig) is, if he will allow me to say so, a very seductive speaker. When he tells us that he has not got a "Treasury head" I am reminded of a certain type of artistic gentleman who always says that he is no business man —until it comes to the presentation of his bill. Then, if there is any sort of delay in paying the bill, or we do not meet his exhorbitant charges in full, we very soon find out that he is a very acute business man. When the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is discussing these matters behind the Speaker's Chair, or wherever they are discussed, those who have to bargain with him will not, I think, subscribe to his description of himself. He did not answer one or
two of the questions put by my hon. Friends, and perhaps, if I repeat them, one of his colleagues may care to reply later. We are told that it is against the interests and the dignity of the Northern Ireland Government—or words to that effect—to come to this House for assistance of this kind time after time and, therefore, that the arrangement should he made permanent. Everyone would like that kind of arrangement. It is very nice that the allowance made by a generous father to his son should be fixed in perpetuity—very nice for the son: but what objection is there to the Northern Ireland Government coming to the British Treasury from time to time and making this kind of arrangement'? Why should this arrangement be a fixed one for all time. We have had no answer to that question, and no answer in any of the previous speeches made in the—

Captain CRAIG: I do not think it is quite fair to say that no answer was given. I think my answer was quite plain. I said no Government could view with equanimity the fact that they were unaware at the beginning of each year where a very large sum of money which they would be responsible to pay during that year was to come from. Each year the Northern Ireland Government would be saying, "Can we count on getting this sum which we require from the British Government? "They would riot know, and that is not a desirable position in which to put a Government. I do not say it will he the case, but this may be one of the largest items of expenditure which the Northern Government have to face during the year, and if they are unaware at the beginning of the financial year whether they can depend on the British Government meeting them in this matter it may upset the whole of the financial arrangements for the year. That is the reason why I think the arrangement we are advocating is necessary.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: From the point of view of the Belfast Government, that reason is, of course, unassailable. It is a very nice arrangement for them, but no reasons have been given as to why we should agree to it. Every Government would like to be in the position of knowing exactly what their liabilities are in connection with
the unemployment insurance or any other fund. We would like to know what the taxes are to be next year, but we shall not know until the Budget is introduced. I can sympathise with the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, but he has not convinced us that we should agree to this bargain. May I also respectfully point out to him that there is no question of our raising the Home Rule issue here? I have taken part in a few debates on the Irish question, debates which have been led by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman and his friends, but there is no question of those old feelings coming up now on these Benches. We make no sort of charge against the Ulster Government because of what happened in those troubled years. That is not the point. We are trying to watch the interests of the British taxpayers in this matter, and we feel that the present Government have been far too generous. They have committed future Parliaments in an improper manner. I am afraid this is a part of their policy of distributing the loot wherever they can—now politically, now financially and now in business; now to their supporters in Northern Ireland, now to the City of London, now to the cable companies—while they have the opportunity.

Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: And now to the unemployed!

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: No, it is not to the unemployed. We are doing this in order that the Belfast Government shall not have to raise taxes in Ulster.

Major ROSS: We have not the power to raise taxes for this. It is a reserved service.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: This is not a reserved service.

Major ROSS: I am telling the hon. and gallant Member that there is no power of raising taxes for it.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: The Northern Ireland Government raises its own taxes. It can raise the money. As this point has been raised, I would like to say that I think Northern Ireland has done extraordinarily well out of the Local Government Bill. I am told we are making what is practically a free gift to Northern Ireland, especially to
the farming community. They have done extraordinarily well out of it; and now we have this on the top of it. [Interruption.] I did not catch what the hon. Member said.

Mr. REID: I was saying that I understand the Government of Northern Ireland get the petrol duty levied on the petrol consumed in Northern Ireland.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Certainly Northern Ireland pays its share of petrol duty, but, as things are, I think it is on the whole doing far better out of the Local Government Bill. The people there will get very much more back, especially the land owning community, than will anyone else in England, in comparison with the taxes they pay. If the representatives of Northern Ireland tell us that they cannot raise any taxes, how are they going to repay these loans of which the hon. and gallant Member has been speaking? Of course there is plenty of money if they can raise money as other Governments have to do.
There is another question which I think must be put and pressed. What are the Government of Northern Ireland doing to deal with the abnormal unemployment which we are told is making this arrangement necessary? What action are they taking? You have a small compact area with a Government in Belfast that has a large majority, and they are in close touch with the people. I want to know what steps they have taken to relieve normal unemployment in Northern Ireland. We are told that the shipbuilding industry and the linen industry are suffering, but that has been the case for a good many years. In this matter, I agree that the present Government have not set a very good example, but what have the Belfast Government done? Have they tried to find work for the men who are out of employment in the shipbuilding and the linen industries? Hon. Members representing Northern Ireland always give faithful support to the Government, and they seem to me to depend a good deal upon arrangements made outside this House. I would like to ask if any steps have been taken to modernise the shipyard in the way of turning out—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Member is getting a very long way from the Bill under discussion.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I was putting those questions because I was anxious to know if the Government of Northern Ireland were following these matters up. My view is that so long as the Treasury allows itself to be influenced by appeals of this kind from Northern Ireland that Government will drift along without trying to get itself out of its own difficulties. I think the Opposition are doing right in resisting this Bill.

Mr. RAMSAY MacDONALD: Before this business is disposed of, I think we ought to receive a reply from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. It is perfectly true that on this question there has been a good deal or repetition of argument, but that is inevitable when a Financial Resolution has to be proposed. The first discussion on a question of this sort is always in the nature of a preliminary canter, and the Government can always move to report Progress at an early stage of the Debate in order that they may be able to reconsider the position. No Government ought to be more grateful for having an opportunity of reconsidering these things than the present Government, and this will be especially important when we come to the next item of business. The nature of the Debate is the same as it would have been if we had moved to report Progress when the Financial Resolution was before us.
May I summarise what we want to know? First of all, why is this Bill introduced now? The Financial Secretary to the Treasury has announced that the agreement which is now running holds good: until March next year. If that be so, why have the Government in the last days of its life proposed to bind its successors in this way? Is this not of the nature of a testamentary gift or of a clause in the will of a dying person to make sure that there will be no doubt about how the money is to go after its own head cannot control its disposition? That is a very serious question. This seems to be one of the dying acts of this Government, and what they are doing is not done in the national interest but it is being done in exactly the same benevolent frame of mind as a person on his deathbed regards those to whom he owes something when making his will.
The second point I wish to put is: why should this be a gift? We are not opposed to keeping this fund sound in Ireland, but why should this proposal not take the form of a loan instead of a gift? That question has not been properly answered. The nearest answer to it has been given by the right hon. and gallant Member for Antrim (Captain Craig) who confesses that he has not the Treasury mind. This, however, is a Treasury problem, and the justice of the case does not concern itself with the relative merits of a gift or a loan. All the justice of the case is concerned with is that the money should be found. I agree that the money should be found, but we disagree with the right hon. and gallant Member for Antrim and the Government that it should be in the form of a gift and not a loan. We are told that this proposal takes the form of a gift, because Northern Ireland is a small and uniform industrial area. You have two important industries in Northern Ireland, the linen and the shipbuilding industry. Everybody who understands insurance knows perfectly well that an insurance scheme is very difficult to devise and make self-contained and self-supporting unless you have a considerable variety of risks. Uniformity comes in as a characteristic and the interests to be covered by insurance are very difficult indeed to deal with, because it is not so much a question of distribution as of crises following crises.
Northern Ireland comes to us and says that the conditions make it especially difficult for them to maintain a sound insurance fund upon the uniform industrial system which we alone possess in this country. Again that is not sufficient. The question now arises: Is there any reason why this simple industrial area, this uniform industrial area should be segregated from the more complicated industrial area of these islands? Three years ago the Chancellor of the Exchequer addressed himself to the problem, and I understand from the speech which the right hon. Gentleman made on that occasion that he is in favour of the segregation, but that there are certain administrative difficulties attached to maintaining the original uniformity of the fund.
Let us see where we are. We now propose, in order to meet that difficulty, to give a gift. Are we going to give a gift to a fund for the administration of
which we are not responsible? The responsibility for administration, if there is any Treasury mind left at all, is common to uniformity of administration, to a common fund, and to a fund that is kept financially sound by annual gifts from this House. We cannot go to the Government of Northern Ireland, whatever amount of confidence we may repose in them, and say, "You can administer your Unemployment Fund as you like; you can pursue any policy you like regarding the handling of your unemployment problem; all that, we are interested in is your accounts." Hon. Members from Northern Ireland must surely see that that would be putting this House in a most unjust, unfair and unbusinesslike relationship with the Government of Northern Ireland.
It is not a question of our stake in the expenditure of the money—let hon. Members remember that; it is a question of the unemployment policy. I see below the Gangway the hon. and gallant Member for Bournemouth (Sir II. Croft), whose presence always reminds one of Safeguarding. Supposing that we adopted Safeguarding as one of the many false cures that we have been trying to adopt for unemployment, arid that the result was that our unemployment went up, or it might be, by accident and temporarily, that it went down, has that no relation to the administration of the Unemployment Fund in Northern Ireland? Let me take something more germane and definite in relation to what is now going on. We are now trying to ease our unemployment problem by the transference of a derelict population, as people say, or perhaps it will be a little more accurate if I say that the transference of population from derelict industrial areas. Part of the argument of hon. Members from Northern Ireland is that the industries of linen and shipbuilding are so bad just now that, at any rate for a substantial length of time, there is no hope that by a revival of those industries the Unemployment Fund is going to be put in a better financial position. What are they doing with regard to transference? That is very important, and it illustrates what I am saying.
Whether we amalgamate the two funds again and make a common fund, such as existed before the Northern Ireland Government was set up, or whether we make
the Northern Ireland Unemployment Fund sound by a block grant, in either case this Government must somehow or other interfere in, or accept responsibility for, not the administration of the Northern Ireland Unemployment Fund, but the policy of the Northern Ireland Government with regard to unemployment. That is our case, and I think it is a very important one. I am not going over certain consequential observations that must be made as a result of what I have said. For instance, our Unemployment Fund has to bear the burden of loans; why should not the Northern Ireland Fund have to bear the burden of loans if it wants assistance? I regard these as secondary considerations. The main considerations which in my opinion we have to take into account today are those that I have just mentioned, and the House really must have a Government reply to the arguments which have been brought forward. I would conclude my observations in this way: Have the Government considered a re-amalgamation of the two Funds? If they are not considering a re-amalgamation of the two Funds, what active responsibility do the Government propose to take on the lines I have indicated so as to justify the giving of a grant? I hope that before we give the Bill a Second Reading the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will make a statement on these points.

Mr. SAMUEL: The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition placed the position in a nutshell when he said that there must he in any reply a certain repetition of argument. For that reason, I rather feared that I might be wearying the House if I went over to-day's arguments as they were placed before it the other day. The right hon. Gentleman, however, put some definite questions to me, and, as the Government have not in any way varied their views since the last Debate, I will answer him, not in a partisan spirit, but as though I were addressing colleagues in a board room who were dealing with a balance sheet. In the first place, we are not considering an amalgamation of the two funds. The right hon. Gentleman asked me why the Bill is being introduced now. It is being introduced now for a very cogent reason. If we get it through here so that the
Northern Ireland Government can get their corresponding Bill through before the 31st March of this year, we shall be in the position of seeing in a few weeks the Northern Ireland Government extinguish, off their own bat, £424,000 of the excess debt on the Northern Ireland Fund. That amount will then be written off by the 31st March next. That is a very important reason. Then the right hon. Gentleman asks why it should be a gift and not a loan. He talks about the Treasury mind, but one does not need the special qualities associated with the Treasury in order to handle this problem. Thirty years in trade have enabled me, as an ordinary average business man, to look at accounts in an ordinary average business way, and I look upon this as a counting-house matter and one such as would be dealt with by business people by elementary counting-house methods.
The hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) does not face the problem as a problem of accounts. He makes gibes about two Tory Governments, and quotes from Goldsmith, hilt he does not get down to the problem. He talks party politics. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley), the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), and the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood), did get down to the problem. They read a lesson to their Front Bench. What is the problem? This is not a question of a Tory Government in Northern Ireland or a Tory Government in England, nor is it a question, as urged by the hon. Member for West Leicester, of the Irish Free State being more capable of looking after matters of this kind than is Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for West Leicester went off at a tangent and talked about the Irish Free State having managed its affairs better than Northern Ireland. That is another fallacious method of arguing, and one which I should like to nail down. In Northern Ireland, the benefits are 17s. for a man and 7s. for a wife. In the Irish Free State the benefits are 15s. for a man and 5s. for a wife. Again, the Irish Free State gets from the employer 10d., and from the workman 9d., or a total of Is. 7d., whereas in Great Britain and Northern Ireland the contribution from the employer is 8d. and from the workman 7d., or a total of is. 3d. Therefore,
so far from the Irish Free State being a better place as regards contributions or benefits, it is, on the whole, not so good.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: Assuming that Northern Ireland did not get a dole from this country, what would the contributions and benefits be in Northern Ireland?

Mr. SAMUEL: The hon. Member said the Free State managed their affairs better than Northern Ireland. I have answered the statement of the hon. Member for West Leicester. The Leader of the Opposition put one or two questions which I will answer. The reason we are making a grant and not a loan is this is. The debt is approximately £4,250,000. Of that amount £3,424,000 is going to be dealt with by the Government of Northern Ireland at once as to £424,000 and as to the other £3,000,000 at the rate of £100,000 a year until the amount is extinguished. That leaves a post-1925 debt of 790,000, which corresponds to the existing debt on the British Fund. The arrangement we have made will ensure that the Irish Fund will remain on a parity with—neither better nor worse than—the British Fund. That is what we propose to do, and we propose to deal with the debt in the way set forth in the Bill. If Northern Ireland continued with a debt of £4,250,000 as desired by the Opposition, the debt, moreover, growing, as we fear it will, on account of the restricted size of their insured population, it would mean that the Northern Ireland Fund would carry a debt at a ratio which if applied to the British Fund—this will show how terribly overwhelming the ratio of debt is on the Northern Ireland Fund —would mean that the debt on the British Fund would no longer be £33,500,000 but £200,000,000—an unthinkable amount. This ratio would paralyse, and sooner or later bankrupt, the Northern Ireland Fund. A grant such as we are making now will establish parity, whereas a loan would bankrupt the Fund. May I take the broad analogy of the cotton trade till recently overwhelmed with loans and over capitalisation and burdened down with debt. If it continues with its great load of debt, the industry will never rehabilitate itself. That is, in effect, the position with the Northern Ireland Fund. A loan is worse than useless; it would increase the difficulties.

Mr. MacDONALD: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that this debt should be unshipped by allowing small competing businesses to go on or is it essential that they should be amalgamated?

Mr. SAMUEL: The way the cotton industry has been relieved of part of its debt is an established fact. Private lenders, banks and others, have actually forgiven, or wiped off, a part of the money due to them which had been lent to the mills or put into the trade as capital, because, with the recent total of debts or loans upon the industry, there was no possible hope of the industry rehabilitating itself, reorganised or not. Reorganisation had involved the shifting off of these very loans. That is what this Bill proposes—getting rid of an unbearable load of debt.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Does it not also imply a change of directorate?

Mr. SAMUEL: Let us take the broad point and not these political and petty debating points. We are proposing to take off the shoulders of the Northern Ireland Fund a burden which, if allowed to remain on it by means of loan, must bankrupt the Fund. What would be the result?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: A Labour Government.

Mr. SAMUEL: The workmen in Northern Ireland will not thank the Socialists opposite for allowing the Fund to become bankrupt. The Ulster working people would be deprived of the benefits they are entitled to. If the Fund became bankrupt no money could be taken out for these poor men who are out of work or, if it became partly bankrupt, only a small benefit would come out. To prevent that it would be necessary, if this Bill is rejected, that the contributions should be raised by further rates upon Ulster men, which means a further load upon the poorest. Then you come to the point which most hon. Members opposite have not faced. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Shettleston and the hon. Members for Gorbals and Dumbarton Burghs have seen the danger. They say, if the benefits at Belfast are reduced, or contributions raised, a number
of the unemployed workmen in Northern Ireland belonging to English trade unions will be coming over to the Clyde, the Tees and the Tyne, where the benefits are better and the contributions not likely to be so high as they will be in Belfast; and they would flood already distressed areas on this side of the Channel. If hon. Members opposite are prepared to go to Belfast and tell the unemployed workmen that they wish their benefits to be reduced or their contributions raised, I leave that unenviable course to them. We are not prepared to see unemployed benefits in Ulster reduced, neither are we prepared to see a further burden put upon the Northern Irish Fund already overweighted with great debt. For these reasons we ask the House to agree to the Bill.

Mr. BECKETT: I am very disappointed that the hon. Gentleman could give us no better arguments in defence of this gift to Northern Ireland than those which he alleged to have been enunciated last week by friends and colleagues of mine from these benches. It is rather an amazing thing to find the Government sheltering behind the Clydesiders, telling us that they are the only people who look problems in the face. If we read their press and listen to their speeches, they are never weary of holding up to the country the dreadful fear that my right hon. Friends in front are going to be dominated and driven into some kind of wild and perilous adventures by these Clydesiders, who have no common-sense of any kind. If that is the argument of the Government—and they cannot deny that it is—that the Front Bench is the voice and the Clyde is the tail that wags the dog, and that it is wagging the dog in all kinds of dangerous courses, they cannot suddenly get up on one issue, where it happnes that my Clyde-side friends to a certain extent agree 'with them, and say that although they are wrong in every other particular they are right in this.
As a matter of fact, I should think the great condemnation of this Bill in the eyes of their own supporters, would be the fact that an unholy alliance has been concluded for this purpose between the right hon. Gentleman the Member
for Shettleston (Mr. Wheatley) and the hon. Gentleman who has just replied. From the point of view of the right hon. Gentleman, who is a friend of mine, it seems to me a most unsatisfactory alliance, because he is merely to be used to shelter a Government which cannot defend itself on one particular issue, to be told that they are very sensible on this issue and not on the others. As a Member representing a Tyneside constituency, I do not think that there is any fear at all of a drift of Belfast shipbuilding workers into the Tyneside area. We have no work on the Tyneside for them. We have thousands of highly skilled men unemployed, and, if they think that they are coming to the Tyneside to get unemployment benefit, then they do not know the Minister of Labour in the present Government. It is more than our own men can get, so I do not think that there is much fear of men coming over from Belfast to try and get it. The hon. Gentleman has endeavoured to frighten the House with a complete bogy. The meanness of this Government, the determination with which a Government of rich men has steadily devised schemes to rob the poor is known freely outside this country, and in Northern Ireland. The only possibility of a drift into this country would come with a change of the present Government.
As far as I can see, there is no case at all for believing that we should present this very large sum of money to the Northern Ireland Government. It is merely being done at the behest of a certain group of Members on the opposite side of the House, and, in my opinion, it is a party bargain which the House should not honour. If it is necessary that the money should be found for the purpose of paying immediate unemployment relief, if the Northern Ireland Government are not in a position to find the money, then I think there is a strong case for a loan of cheap money at a low rate of interest. I see no case for a gift which is going to be a permanent burden upon the British taxpayer, and I hope the House will not accept the proposal.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 124; Noes, 38.

Division No. 248.]
AYES.
[12.58 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Pownall, Sir Assheton


Allen, Lieut,-Col. Sir William James
Goff, Sir Park
Reid, D. D. (County Down)


Amery, Rt. Hon. Leopold C. M. S.
Grant, Sir J. A.
Rhys, Hon. C. A. U.


Applin, Colonel R. V. K.
Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter
Ross, R. D.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon
Hamilton, Sir George
Rye, F. G.


Benn, Sir A. S. (Plymouth, Drake)
Hammersley, S. S.
Salmon, Major I.


Berry, Sir George
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Bird, E. R. (Yorks, W. R., Skipton)
Henderson, Lieut.-Col. Sir Vivian
Sandeman, N. Stewart


Blundell, F. N.
Hennessy, Major Sir G. R. J.
Sanders, Sir Robert A.


Bourne, Captain Robert Croft
Hilton, Cecil
Sanderson, Sir Frank


Bowyer, Capt. G. E. W.
Hope, Sir Harry (Forfar)
Sandon, Lord


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Hopkinson, Sir A. (Eng. Universities)
Shaw, Lt.-Col. A. D.Mcl-(Renfrew,W.)


Briscoe, Richard George
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Simms, Dr. John M. (Co. Down)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Sinclair, Major Sir A. (Caithness)


Brooke, Brigadier-General C. R. I.
Hume, Sir G. H.
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)


Broun-Lindsay, Major H.
Hurst, Gerald B.
Smith-Carington, Neville W.


Brown,Brig.-Gen.H.C. (Berks, Newb'y)
Inskip, Sir Thomas Walker H.
Smithers, Waldron


Buckingham, Sir H
Iveagh, Countess of
Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)


Burton, Colonel H. W.
Jackson, Sir H. (Wandsworth, Cen'l)
Southby, Commander A. R. J.


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Spender-Clay, Colonel H.


Cayzer, Sir C. (Chester, City)
King, Commodore Henry Douglas
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser


Chamberlain,Rt.Hn.SirJ.A. (Birm.,W.)
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hon. Godfrey
Tasker, R. Inigo.


Christie, J. A.
Loder, J. de v.
Thomas, Sir Robert John (Anglesey)


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Looker, Herbert William
Thomson, Rt. Hon. Sir W. Mitchell-


Clarry, Reginald George
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh Vere
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Cohen, Major J. Brunel
Luce, Major-Gen. Sir Richard Harman
Vaughan-Morgan, Col. K. P.


Cooper, A. Duff
Macdonald, Capt. P. D. (I. of W.)
Wallace, Captain D. E.


Couper, J. B.
McLean, Major A.
Warner, Brigadier-General W. W


Craig, Capt. Rt. Hon. C. C. (Antrim)
Macmillan, Captain H.
Warrender, Sir Victor


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Macquisten, F. A.
Watts, Sir Thomas


Crooke, J. Smedley (Deritend)
MacRobert, Alexander M.
Wayland, Sir William A.


Crookshank, Col. C. de W. (Berwick)
Monsell, Eyres, Com. Rt. Hon. B. M,
Wells, S. R.


Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. (Hertford)
Moore, Lieut.-Colonel T. C. R. (Ayr)
Williams, A. M. (Cornwall, Northern)


Davies, Sir Thomas (Cirencester)
Morrison-Bell, Sir Arthur Clive
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Davison, Sir W. H. (Kensington, S.)
Murchison, Sir Kenneth
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Erskine, Lord (Somerset, Weston-s.-M.)
Nelson, Sir Frank
Yerburgh, Major Robert D. T.


Erskine, James Malcolm Monteith
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (Norwich)


Fairfax, Captain J. G.
Nlcholson,Col.Rt.Hon.W.G.(Ptrsf'ld.)



Falle, Sir Bertram G.
Nield, Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Fermoy, Lord
Nuttall, Ellis
Major Sir William Cope and Captain


Foster, Sir Harry S.
Oman, Sir Charles William C.
Margesson.


Fraser, Captain Ian
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William





NOES.


Alexander, A. V. (Sheffield, Hillsbro')
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Sitch, Charles H.


Ammon, Charles George
Kelly, W. T.
Smith, Rennle (Penistone)


Batey, Joseph
Kennedy, T.
Snell, Harry


Beckett, John (Gateshead)
Kenworthy, Lt.-Com. Hon. Joseph M.
Snowden, Rt. Hon. Philip


Bellamy, A.
Lawrence, Susan
Thomas, Rt. Hon. James H. (Derby)


Benn, Wedgwood
Lindley, F. W.
Thurtle, Ernest


Cape, Thomas
MacDonald, Rt. Hon.J.R. (Aberavon)
Tinker, John Joseph


Charleton, H. C.
Mosley, Sir Oswald
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Day, Harry
Naylor, T. E.
Wellock, Wilfred


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Wilson, C. H. (Sheffield, Attercliffe)


Greenwood, A. (Nelson and Colne)
Ponsonby, Arthur



Grenfell, D. R. (Glamorgan)
Richardson, R. (Houghton le-Spring)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Hall, G. H. (Merthyr Tydvll)
Shinwell, E.
Mr. A. Barnes and Mr. B. Smith.


Hudson, J. H. (Huddersfield)
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House for Monday next, 4th March. —[Mr. Samuel.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

Considered in Committee.

[Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]

CIVIL ESTIMATES, REVISED SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1928.

CLASS II

DOMINION SERVICES.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £385,000, be granted to His Majesty,
to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1929, for sundry Dominion Services including a Grant-in-Aid, for advances in certain cases on account liabilities assumed by the Government of the Irish Free State in connection with Compensation for Damage to Property or with Land Purchase, for certain ex-gratia Grants, and for Expenditure in connection with Ex-Service Men in the Irish Free State.

The SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. Amery): The Supplementary Estimate for £385,000 which I submit to the Committee is the sum required to enable payments to be made in full on the recommendations of the Wood Renton Committee up to the
end of the present financial year. The Prime Minister, on Friday last, set forth very clearly the reasons which have decided the Government in authorising the payment of these amounts. The Government throughout have maintained the point of view that the recommendations of this Committee were not awards of a legal tribunal which it was a debt of honour to pay in full, but that they were advisory recommendations, and that it remained with the Government to decide what total amount, in view of its other responsibilities, it would allot in order to meet the claims for the hardships suffered by Irish loyalists in the disturbed period that followed immediately upon the establishment of the Irish Free State.
The Government have never ignored the reality of the sufferings endured or the fact that they were endured by these people because they had been adherents of the Government of the United Kingdom and that, therefore, there did rest upon the Government a special obligation to afford some substantial measure of relief. In view of the clearly expressed opinion in all parts of the House, that this relief should be on so generous a scale as not to leave behind it any bitterness or rankling sense of injustice, the Government have decided to waive the overhead limit which it had previously imposed, and to sanction the payment in full of the recommendations. In coming to this conclusion, the Government were influenced, not only by the general sentiment of the House, but also by the knowledge that the work of the Wood Renton Committee had been carried out with scrupulous care and with the closest regard to the public interest. The procedure of that Committee, though less formal than that of a judicial tribunal, has been practical and searching, and if the Government preferred to entrust the scrutiny of the claims to the Secretary of the Committee, and not to counsel, that was because they found in him—as is testified in the newspapers today by the Duke of Northumberland, who pays a well deserved tribute to the impartiality and fairness of the Committee—a "most vigilant watchdog of the public purse."
Although we are now going beyond the limit which we previously set, it is
with the knowledge that this addition to the heavy total of our national expenditure and to the large sum that has already been paid in connection with Irish compensation will, at any rate, not involve any payment in itself extravagant, or disproportionate to the hardships and sufferings endured. The total amount that will have been paid in connection with these ex-gratia payments by the end of the current year will be £1,377,000. What total amount may still be required in next year's Estimates it is impossible, owing to the very nature of the claims, to estimate, but, at a rough guess, I would venture to estimate the figure at £250,000, although it might well be possibly £100,000 more or less either way. In putting this increased Estimate before the Committee, I can only express the earnest hope that these payments will close, with some comfort to the people who have suffered so cruelly, a dark and troubled chapter in the history of Irish affairs; a chapter which we hope, whatever our political views about Ireland may have been, may be the prelude to better things in the future.

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: I do not quite know whether one ought to congratulate the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs on what he has said, or whether it would have been better for him to have got up and, frankly, to have said: "I apologise to the House for everything that I said a few days ago. I was hopelessly wrong, and I now want to make amends." I think that would have been the most fitting thing to say; but he did not do that. He said that the Prime Minister had set out very clearly the reasons for this changed attitude. Does he mean in the statement made last Friday?

Mr. AMERY indicated assent.

Mr. THOMAS: He does. The Prime Minister has given two reasons. He gave one last Friday, and he gave another at a dinner in Worcestershire, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer was also present. Let us see what was the explanation that he gave there. He said:
I learned very early that a Worcestershire man cannot be 'druv'.
That is to say, except in the House of Commons.
The Chancellor knows that the same is true in Oxfordshire.
But they were "druv."
The other clay we found ourselves side by side in the House of Commons, and the mood of that House recalled to us some of the peculiarities of the people among whom we were brought up.
That is to say, they were brought up among peculiar people
I well remember what an old driver said to me on the road one day. When driving some pigs to market he was experiencing more than the usual difficulty in getting them along the road—it was more than 40 years ago—and he said to me, Hard things to drive, many of them, is pigs.' I whispered that to the Chancellor, and we surrendered.
I am looking at the porkers. When the Colonial Secretary says that last Friday the Prime Minister told the truth, I must remind him that the truth was spoken later. The Patronage Secretary was the unhappiest man in the House that day; he was running here and there. He was not thinking of pigs at all; pigs did not influence him; it was votes. The curious thing is that the Prime Minister, having satisfied himself that he cannot drive pigs, made up his mind that he would surrender, and I am reminded as to the way the Chancellor of the Exchequer took it. I do not remember the whisper, but I do remember the Chancellor of the Exchequer's face, and I refuse to believe that he was thinking of pigs on that day, unless he had in his mind the very unkind things which were said about him by his own friends. I want to ask the Colonial Secretary since when did he share this view? He introduced the Estimate a few days ago, and, in introducing it, he said:
Therefore, I would plead with the Committee that, taking into account all the calls which the British Government have to face, the amount which we are now asking this Committee to grant is one which we hope the Committee will sanction as a generous endeavour to meet the tragedy which so many homes have suffered in Ireland, and also to support us in regarding this measure of assistance as sufficient in view of the obligations of the Government in many other direct ions."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th February, 1929; col. 973, Vol. 225.]
That was the right hon. Gentleman's view a few days ago. He now tells us that the Government were influenced because they suddenly discovered that a magnificent Committee considered this question. He says to-day, "Not alone were we influenced by the speeches made in this House, but by the impartiality
of the Committee." When did the Government discover this? Are we to understand that they have only discovered that this Commitee was impartial during the last few days? Are we to understand that the impartiality of this Committee, which they themselves appointed and whose report they considered, was only brought to their attention a few days ago? This is what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said on that point the other day:
It is a, must unpleasant thing, but somewhere in the State, somewhere in this rather fluid organisation of our modern Government there must reside a principle in the light of which we can say 'no' when a certain point has been reached.
That is to say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer in this fluid Government says "no" while the Prime Minister in this same fluid Government can say "yes" an hour afterwards.
And it is very dangerous indeed, I think, for the House, carried away by absolutely right feelings, by strong sentiments of generosity, carried away by a sincere belief that they are expressing what is just, to brush aside or wear down the constituted guardians of the public purse, to overturn the definite long-considered judgment of the Cabinet of the day."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th February, 1929; col. 1002, Vol. 225.]
"To over-torn the definite and long-considered judgment of the Cabinet of the day"—how does that square with the speech of the Colonial Secretary? Again I quote the Chancellor of the Exchequer's words:
Someone must refuse to allow a blank cheque to be signed by someone else.
This is the same Chancellor of the Exchequer who warned the people of this country what would be the end of governments if Chancellors of the Exchequer and Prime Ministers are to be influenced by the back benches. This is the same Chancellor of the Exchequer who drew attention to the spineless Ministers of the Labour Government, who would not have the courage to stand up and say "no" to any proposal. The Colonial Secretary, in his peroration, said that he hoped this was the end of a black chapter in the lives of these unfortunate victims. He ought to have said: "I hope this is the end of a very black Tuesday to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and myself, when we were thrown over by the Prime Minister." That would have been a more accurate
description of the situation. For these reasons, we say to the Government "no," you cannot justify these continual jumps, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer described them.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Churchill): I was quoting a phrase used by an hon. Friend.

Mr. THOMAS: The Chancellor of the Exchequer not only quoted but accepted the phrase. The jumping has been a very simple process. First, it was £400,000, then £625,000. Then 12 months added to the period during which applications were allowed to come in. Then a shock, because applications were increased by 25 per cent. Then a review by a Committee which we are told was almost judicial in character. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, said quite the reverse. He said, how can you expect the House of Commons or the Government to accept the Report of a Committee, however distinguished, when the Treasury case is not allowed to be put. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has now to accept the Bill of that same Committee, and the Treasury have not had a word in it. It is a curious situation with which we are faced to-day. Can anyone wonder that we on these benches say "no." This is an abject surrender on the part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We have known him to adapt himself to all manner of circumstances, and this afternoon's exhibition is no exception to the rule. I am sure that he will be able to tell us that it was done in the public interest. I am sure he will be able to tell us that what he said a few daws ago was applicable to every other case except that of Ulster. So far as we are concerned, we much prefer the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the role in which he was last Tuesday, and for that reason we shall oppose this Estimate.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: I concur with this Vote entirely, but let me say at once that I am not prepared to take any lecture from the right hon. Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas). I seem to recollect that he and his party when in office were prepared to give a loan of £45,000,000 to Russia without any security. That proposal helped to bring down the Labour
Government. Forty-five million pounds as a loan without security is a very different proposition from making an amend for loss and damage which was inflicted upon our fellow subjects in the South of Ireland when we were unable to protect them and when the new Government was not able to protect them. There is no doubt whatever that they sustained that loss. While one may be quite sympathetic with all proposals for protecting the British Treasury—Ireland has always been a source of loss to the British Treasury, both North and South—one may be perfectly prepared to pay in a case of this kind, because this was a case where the British Government failed. I was strongly opposed to the Treaty at the time, but it is no use now crying over what is past. We could not protect these unfortunate people, and we later appointed a Committee to look into the matter. We got a report from that Committee, and I think that the right thing to do is to implement the figures that were brought out in the report. But we are not going to take any lecture on the subject from the Labour benches.

Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN: May I ask the hon. and learned Member a question?

Mr. MACQUISTEN: No; the hon. Member is a new recruit to the Labour party. It is a pity that he did not take some of the Lloyd George Fund with him for he would have been much more treasured had he done so. This amend should be made to these unfortunate people who suffered from a defect in our position when we were unable to protect them. I am very glad that the Government have seen their way to make this grant. There is no need for hon. Members opposite to talk about lack of consistency when we remember what occurred under the Labour Government in connection with the Russian loan.

Mr. BENN: I do not propose to deal with the small question of taste of the hon. and learned Member; that is a matter for him to decide for himself. But when he said that we had had the Report of the Wood Renton Committee I wished to ask him a question. I put the question to him now. When have we had that report? Has the hon. and learned Member had it?

Mr. MACQUISTEN: No.

Mr. BENN: Then what is the good of saying that we have had it. The hon. and learned Member has not had it.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: We have had the Wood Renton award, which we know perfectly well.

Mr. BENN: What does the hon. and learned Member mean? Has he ever seen the report? Has he ever seen a list of the individual awards?

Mr. THOMAS: Surely the hon. and learned Member did not mean it when he said that we had had the report? Let me remind him that neither he nor his side nor anyone on this side of the Committee has had the report, and that no one except the Government knows who the applicants are. Therefore, it is use less for him to say that he has seen the report, when he has not seen it.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: We have the figures that the Committee have given.

Mr. THOMAS: The hon. and learned Member has not even the figures, and he knows he has not got them.

Mr. BENN: The hon. and learned Member gets into greater difficulties the more questions he is asked. The part of his case that was not based on errors of taste was based on errors of fact. I am very sorry that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not here. I should imagine that outside the circumscribed area of the British taxpayers he is the most popular Chancellor of the Exchequer in the world. Anyone has only to come to him for money and he gets it. Greeks or Portuguese or Italians get the easiest settlement possible. Three times this week we have had demands from the other side of the Irish Sea, and we ask when this sort of thing is going to stop. Everyone seems to find a ready Chancellor, except the overburdened British taxpayer. Let it be remembered, without going into details of the Irish trouble, that this is a war reparation, and that this was one of the numerous unsuccessful wars waged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs. I remember that week after week the hon. Member for Smethwick (Sir O. Mosley) took a particular part in the Debates. We said week after week, "This is a war in which we should not be engaged. It is a ghastly enterprise.
Stop it." Week after week the Chancellor of the Exchequer deployed his forces at the Table, advanced his cadets, arranged for his munitions, and there were always gallant victories, and always, as in every war that he has waged, victories in Debate and pitiful surrenders in the field.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is now going a little too far on this Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. BENN: While, of course, expressing my courteous recognition of the Chair, I should be sorry to think that the Rules of Procedure forbade us to inquire into the conduct which caused these Estimates to be presented.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member must remember that this is not the original Estimate, but the Supplementary Estimate, and a proposal to increase the amount of the original Estimate.

Mr. THOMAS: This is very important. Does it follow that on an ordinary Estimate matters might be raised which on a Supplementary Estimate would be out of order?

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That is so. It is a perfectly well-known rule of procedure. The range of discussion on a Supplementary Estimate is very much narrower than on the original Estimate.

Mr. THOMAS: It is limited, we know, but surely it cannot be argued that something for which the Estimate is responsible is out of order? That is all that my hon. Friend is arguing.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: The question of policy is decided on the original Estimate. The question of policy does not, therefore, arise on the Supplementary Estimate, which makes provision merely for the increase of the Vote.

Mr. BENN: That, of course, is quite right. A new service is one thing, and a Supplementary Estimate another thing. In character, this is a new service, because the original Estimate was a partial grant and the Government have now changed their decision and decided to make payment in full. We know quite well that a new service gives latitude that a Supplementary Estimate cannot give, but at the same time, when a Supplementary Estimate is so extended as to
alter the basis on which it is made, it has something of the character of a new service. I object to seeing men who conducted what I call a real political crime in this House come along with smug assurance and evangelical addresses when we have to face the Bill. This is not a debt of honour. The Cabinet—the 20 right hon. Gentlemen who appear from time to time on the Front Bench opposite and who are supposed to be a court of honour by hon. Members opposite announced definitely that they reject the plea of the right hon. and gallant Member for Burton (Colonel Gretton) that this is a debt of honour. It is a Government public debt and it has to be discharged with ordinary regard to public economy and to equity. Here we have 283 people who have had hundreds of thousands of pounds and who now want another £300,000. That is the germ of the whole matter. They have been awarded these sums by a committee on which the Treasury and this House have no representation whatever. The Treasury have no representation now, nor will they have any representation in the future on this committee.

Mr. AMERY: I must make it clear that the Treasury preferred to be represented by the secretary of the committee and not by counsel, because they believe they would get a sufficiently close and effective scrutiny in that way.

Mr. THOMAS: Surely the right hon. Gentleman forgets what was said in the last Debate. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in taking up the attitude which he did take up against his own friends said, in effect, "Had this been a judicial committee, of course, we would have accepted it without question, but it was not a judicial committee and the Treasury had no right to put their case before it." It was because of all these things that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said we ought to treat this matter in a wholly different way. How can the right hon. Gentleman change that View?

Mr. AMERY: I think I made it clear in the previous Debate that this was not, in the, view of the Government, a legal tribunal giving legal awards. The basis of the investigation was the general equity of the cases put before it. For these reasons the Government were not repre-
sented before that committee. If anything said, either by the Prime Minister in his answer, or by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave the impression that the Treasury could not have been represented by counsel if it had so wished, then that was by inadvertence, because undoubtedly if we had wished to treat it differently we might have done so. The method in which the investigation was carried out, was that of an investigation into the equity of these cases in which the Government relied upon the careful and close scrutiny given by the committee itself and by the secretary.

Mr. THOMAS: How can the right hon. Gentleman square that statement with these words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer:
If this were the award of a judicial tribunal, there would he nothing more to be said. We habitually entrust ourselves in financial matters to the Courts of Law, and where a matter is fought out according to law by a properly constituted tribunal, whatever the bill in that particular case may be, the British Exchequer has to honour it. This was not such a tribunal. It was not a tribunal constituted on a legal basis, where both parties to the controversy were represented. It was a tribunal which was dealing with matters admittedly outside any of the ordinary formulations of the law, and, therefore, I have said throughout, not only in the House of Commons, but privately to hon. Members who take such a great interest in this matter, and who rightly take a great interest in it, You cannot expect the Minister responsible for the time being for the public finances to allow anybody the privilege of writing unlimited cheques upon the public account otherwise than by judicial procedure with both parties represented.'"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th February, 1929; col. 1004, Vol. 225.]
That was the reason which the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave then.

Mr. AMERY: That seems to be a perfectly clear statement of the facts as they were—that this tribunal was not a court of law, that it was not a judicial tribunal, and that we did not proceed before it under the ordinary procedure of a court of law. Nor was it influenced by questions of exact damages such as affect a court of law. All that I desired to correct in the statement of the hon. and gallant Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Benn) was the suggestion that we could not have been represented by counsel if we had wished. Had we wished we could have been represented. The whole procedure of this Committee, was an informal
one, though I submit it was a practical searching inquiry and one that, was, carried out with due regard to public economy and, I believe, in the most efficient manner.

Mr. BENN: What I object to about this Debate is the humbug. The plain fact known to everybody is that the Cabinet decided that we had gone to the limit in meeting these claims. They made that decision after careful and deliberate consultation and with all the material before them. The humbug of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Dominions Affairs is that he will address us on this matter as if we were a revival meeting, and he was leading us into some promised land. The plain fact is that the decision was come to, because the Chief Government Whip said that his own people would not stand for the Government's action in the matter, and the right hon. Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) came down and held a pistol to the heads of the Government. Why do they not say so? The only honest word spoken on the Government Bench was the remark of the Prime Minister, "We feel that the pressure of the House compels us to do this." What is the good of the Dominion Secretary now protesting that this Committee is something different from what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said it was? We have the Chancellor's statement that there was no case where the Treasury Council could advance arguments.
What is the case which is made out now? We are told that the Treasury might have appeared before this Committee. But what sort of a, Treasury is this? In a matter in which Treasury interests were concerned they prefer to allow a committee to decide the amount which is to be paid without being represented. That is their present case. The fact of the matter is that these awards, and the additional £250,000 or £300,000 of awards have been made on evidence which is in the possession of right hon. Gentlemen opposite. We, have not heard the evidence. We are supposed to be the Committee of Supply but we have not the evidence. The hon. and learned Member for Argyllshire (Mr. Macquisten) has not had these particu-
lars. Nobody has had them but the Government. I put down a question merely asking for a return. I did not ask for the names of the applicants. I am not desirous of probing into the circumstances of any person who has suffered in this way, but, is it, unreasonable to ask for a return showing the different categories of these claims, and how much has been paid in each category? We are told that some 283 persons are to have round about £1,000,000. Is it unreasonable to ask that we should be given, under figures or under letters, some particulars of these claims? Is that a partisan request? Is that an improper demand to make in Committee of Supply when we know that the information is available? To come along and to say that there is some special judicial merit about this committee, or that a proper financial check was exercised by the committee is simply misleading us.
Then what of the future? I venture to say that there is no parallel with the position in which we find ourselves. Not only are we going to pay out the sums which have already been mentioned, but we may have to pay more. This committee is still sitting. Does the Treasury propose to take advantage of the, opportunity which it has got to be represented in the future? I notice that question is met with silence. There was plenty of energy and breath for other exhortations, but there is no answer to a simple question of that kind. The right hon. Gentleman has said that the Treasury could have gone before the committee. They could have represented the interests of those wretched people who have to pay taxes far beyond their means in this country. But they did not think it necessary. This was such an excellent committee. Is the right hon. Gentleman proposing now to see that in future we are represented before the Wood Renton Committee?

Mr. AMERY: It is for the Treasury to take whatever steps it thinks necessary to safeguard the public interest in this matter.

Mr. BENN: What news for the taxpayer! There is absolutely no limit, if we pass this Estimate, to what we may have to pay in the future.

Sir HARRY FOSTER: As the hon. Member quoted the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is he aware that a year ago, on 20th February, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in this House that the work of the Wood Renton Committee
has been done at every stage with a due regard to the interests of the general public and that the recommendations cannot be considered excessive."—[OFFICLAL REPORT, 20th February, 192S; col. 1198, Vol. 213.]

Mr BENN: I had the pleasure of listening to the hon. Member's speech on the previous occasion, and I am well aware of those assurances, but they do not touch the issue. We are paying this £1,300,000, not from high principles, but because the Government is in a funk and cannot risk having a defeat in the House of Commons when it is having so many defeats up and down the country. That is the beginning and the end of the whole thing. But what about the future? Here is this Wood Renton Committee sitting. Of course, they are worthy and eminent men, but I have asked the Dominions Secretary if he is going to see that before this committee, when the 850 undisposed of claims are being dealt with, we are represented as taxpayers, and he cannot answer that question, or, if he does answer, he says "No, we are so satisfied with this committee that they may fill in our cheques and we will undertake to honour them." Of course, if we accept this Estimate to-day, we, 'as a Committee are bound to honour any award that the Wood Renton Committee may make. The Dominions Secretary has the effrontery to come to the House of Commons and say to us, in the absence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, "What has the Exchequer to do with the mere distribution of a quarter of a million pounds?"

Sir HENRY CAUTLEY: Was not the Wood Renton Committee appointed to make awards?

Mr. BENN: If the hon. and learned Gentleman wants to know, it was appointed because there was a lot of pressure brought by Conservative Peers some two or three years ago. That was the beginning, and the Wood Renton Committee time and again has been declared not to be a judicial committee before which the taxpayer has a locus in the same way as the claimants have a locus.

Sir H. CAUTLEY: Arcs the Committee's awards, then, to he disregarded?

Mr. BENN: Not at all, but they should be examined, and it should be for the Cabinet to decide whether or not they are to be paid.

Sir H. CAUTLEY: The hon. Member has given us no reason why the Wood Renton Committee was appointed unless its awards were to be accepted.

Mr. BENN: The Committee was appointed as an advisory committee, not as an awarding committee. Is it not possible to ask for advice without promising to accept the advice? This Wood Renton Committee was appointed to advise the Cabinet. The Cabinet examined its claims, and in the first instance rejected the total, and then they decided to meet them; but I am coming to the future. Some 850 people have got unexamined and undecided claims. I have asked the Dominions Secretary whether the Treasury is to be represented on the Wood Renton Committee to protect the interests of the taxpayer when these claims are considered, and he cannot tell us, or, if he says anything, I understand him to say "No"

Mr. MACQUISTEN: Is not Sir Alexander Wood Renton, the Chairman, an Aberdonian and cannot an Aberdonian he trusted not to waste money?

Mr. BENN: I am very anxious to hear any relevant, remark the hon. and learned Member may make; but here is the situation. What are we in for in the way of these 850 undecided claims, out of 3,165; that is, about a quarter of the total? We have had a bill of £1,400,000, and roughly we shall have another £300,000 or£400,000 to meet. But not only that, for inasmuch as we are not going to be represented before the Committee, the Committee can make any award, and should make any award. What will be the position of a claimant? He will say to the Committee, "Anything that you decide, I shall get. Deal with me generously, because the House of Commons has undertaken in advance, without representation of the Treasury, to meet any claims that may be put forward." The Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is a master of phrase, said:
Right down the whole line you will find weakness and collapse."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th February, 1929; cols. 1007–8, Vol. 225.]
That is so, and I venture to think that many people who have never taken sides on the Irish question, who do not take sides to-day as between the Socialist party and the Conservative party, many ordinary taxpayers, will ask whether this is decent control of the funds to which they, already overburdened, have to make so heavy a contribution.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: As I was not able to be present last Friday, I should like to express my personal gratitude to the Government for having at last agreed to meet these sums in full. Whether nay friends and I are appropriately described as pigs, by reason of our persistence in this matter, is a question which everyone must decide for himself, but the animal which comes to my mind in regard to the action of the Government, which has been referred to as having been a series of jumps, is rather the kangaroo. I very much regret that the Socialist party, which says the Government has been inconsistent, should have shown an inconsistency equal to, if not greater than, that of the Government, and that they should have thrown over the policy which —all honour to them—they adopted throughout when they were Ministers of the Crown. Why, in order to get a cheap score off the Government, have they suddenly gone back on the reasoned and considered policy which, to their honour, they adopted when they were advising His Majesty on this and other matters? Let me remind them what their Minister in the House of Lords, with the authority of the Socialist Cabinet, said. He said:
The present Government in this whole question are adhering to the policy followed by their predecessors, and they see no grounds for departing from that policy …This Government have in no way departed from the policy laid down by their predecessors as to the British Government's responsibility for compensation, but, on the contrary, have developed that policy.

Mr. MacDONALD: Hear, hear!

Sir W. DAVISON: I am glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman who was the Labour Prime Minister applaud that statement, but what was the responsibility which the Duke of Devonshire announced in the House of Lords as the responsi-
bility of the British Government in this matter? It was this:
It is for us who have accepted that responsibility to see that full and ample justice is rendered in all cases.
Then the Government said, "How are we, sitting here in London, a body of busy men, to ascertain what full and ample justice is in each of these eases?" So they appointed the Dunedin Committee to go through all the pledges which had been given and to advise them how they could carry out this responsibility, and this is what Lord Dunedin, after full inquiry, said:
It follows, in my opinion, that the Government should now take definite steps to ascertain the extent of such injury, and to alleviate it to the best of their ability. The Government should have the advice of a committee specially appointed for the purpose, think this committee should be composed of not more than three members who should not lie in the employment of the Government and that the chairman should be a lawyer.
As a result of that, the Wood Renton Committee was appointed to ascertain the amount of the grants which might in reason and in fairness be made to the applicants. Of course, we know that nobody could bring an action at law to enforce the awards made, by the Wood Renton Committee, but any fair-minded man would say that, if a body of men, a Government or anyone else, refers to an impartial committee, not of Members of the Government, but a committee with a judge at its head, to ascertain what are the amounts which in reason and fairness should be paid, then in all honesty those amounts ought to be paid in full. It was never suggested for a moment that there was to be an ex gratia payment, that the Government would pay as much as they could afford. The subject was referred to the committee as the only way in which the Government could ascertain what their responsibility was—a responsibility admitted by the Socialist Government and by every Government that has had this matter in hand. What is that responsibility? The only way they could ascertain it was by getting this admittedly impartial tribunal to go into the case. Of those who appeared before that committee, I may have met one or two, but practically know none of them personally, except that I met them in the Committee room, farmers and others who came to state their case, but certainly not my personal friends.
It has been said that some of these claims were inflated. Quite likely, as anyone who has purchased horses in Ireland knows, the Irishman usually puts forward a larger sum than than he is prepared to take. I do not know whether the claims as a whole were inflated or not, but the Committee treated them all impartially, and most people say that, if anything, they erred on the severe side. Whatever the claims, we as taxpayers are asked to pay only the claims which this Committee, after judicial consideration, think in reason and fairness is the amount which ought to be paid. There was no other way in which this responsibility, admitted by all Governments, could be ascertained, and I do appeal to hon. Members opposite to adhere to the view expressed by those of their party who were responsible Ministers of the Crown, and that, having made their gibe at the Government, they will not press their opposition, because, really, it is an act of grace, quite apart from anything else, that the British Parliament as a whole should vote this sum, not by compulsion or by a vote in the Lobby, but as a free gift, recognising the sufferings of these unfortunate people.
I agree with the last speaker in that it is a matter for regret that the British taxpayers are always being called in to make good some of the money which is the real reliability of the Free State. I do not want to introduce anything with which my hon. Friends opposite might disagree, but the last speaker remarked that we are continually being asked to vote money to make good liabilities which primarily rest on other shoulders. Be that as it may, it is a liabilty of all partes in this House to see that full and ample justice is done to these unfortunate people who, through no fault of their own, but by reason of high politics, which we are not discussing to-day, by reason of the fact that British soldiers were taken out of Ireland, that the Royal Irish Constabulary was disbanded before the Free State had themselves established a police force, these people were abandoned to their fate and suffered all these injuries. I do hope, therefore, the House will pass this Vote without a Division.

2.0.p.m.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I do not object very much to anything the hon. and gallant Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) has said, and I think his description of this as a free gift is a very happy one indeed. But I do object to this particular class of people, who suffered between the years 1914 and 1921, being picked out for special treatment. I also object because the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs could not tell us what the final claim would be. He does not know, and it is obvious that the word has now gone forth that the Treasury chest is unlocked—

Captain CRAIG: The hon and gallant Member referred to people who suffered between 1914 and 1921. The people whose claims are under consideration are those who suffered after the Treaty of 1920.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: The date is not arbitrary. I meant the disturbance arising out of the War. From 1914 onwards all this is of a piece. The trouble in Ireland arose as a result of events of the War, and many people suffered during those years.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: I must remind the hon. and gallant Member that he really cannot go back to the events of the War.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: As the hon. and gallant Member did not speak of high policy, I will not refer to that, but I do object to this particular class of payment. All the small claims, I think, up to £1,000 have been paid in full. There are not many small people, and a comparatively limited class has made claims that are going to cost the Exchequer a very great deal. If the Government ought to compensate them, they ought to be compensated, but my objection is that you make a special case of these people. The Diehards, led by the right hon. and gallant Member for Burton (Colonel Gretton), with his secret Committee room, his secret whips and secret letters sent out to supporters, have brought all kinds of pressure to bear on the Government for this particular handful of unfortunate people, who, I admit, have suffered—and I am sorry for them—largely owing to the policy the same hon. Gentlemen pursue. All this is done for a particular
class, but how about the other class of people who suffered during the same period? What have we heard in their case? We have heard a great deal about the Wood Renton Committee. How about the Sumner Committee? How have those unfortunate people been treated? There has been no revolt on the. Conservative benches to help them. I have many seamen in my constituency who, because they were late in putting in their claims—perhaps they were in China, or somewhere else—have had no compensation for being blown up by enemy action, in the War. They suffered on behalf of their country; they were supporting the nation. These people who have been compensated, however, were admittedly supporting a political party in this country.

Sir W. DAVISON: There is a very distinct difference. The injuries of these unfortunate people were suffered by reason of the action of the British Government. The victims whose case was considered by the Sumner Committee suffered by reason of enemy action. The British Government did everything they could to protect them lay the armed forces of the Crown. These people suffered by reason of the withdrawal of the armed forces of the Crown and being left, without protection.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I could well argue that point and show that the Government were responsible for not having efficient air defences, and I could argue that the Government could be held responsible for not giving greater protection to the fishermen and their trawlers. The cases are very much on all fours. The important point is that we are finding money for these friends of the party opposite, for whom I am sorry, and who were misled and let down by hon. Gentlemen opposite. We are finding the money for them from the overburdened British taxpayer, whereas we were promised that the reparations which we are asking for the sufferers from enemy action would be obtained from the Germans.

The CHAIRMAN (Mr. James Hope): The hon. and gallant Member is justified in saying that these people did not get their full compensation, but he cannot go into the question of the sources of the compensation.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I will not go into that. In the case of the Sumner Commission, the first £230 was paid in full. In this case the first 11,000 is paid in full. I want to draw attention to the contrast in the treatment of the unfortunate English people and the Irish people.

Sir W. DAVISON: Originally it was £250 in this case, too.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: And now it is £1,000. From £250 up to 21,000, £50 was awarded in the Sumner Commission's Report, but in this case 100 per cent. is given. From £1,000 up to £50,000 the percentage is 30. These were not claims, but were the findings of a Commission, and they talk of a dividend because the amount of money voted by the Government was insufficient to meet the claims. The Royal Commission, which was not an ad hoc body like the Wood Benton Committee, assessed the total damage at £12,500,000. The Treasury allotted £5,000,000 to meet this sum, and when other claims came in another £300,000 was voted, making altogether £5,300,000 to meet the assessed claim of £12,500,000. What protest did we hear from the Conservative party against the shabby treatment of these people? Who were the sufferers? The right hon. Gentleman's friends were farmers, and a great many were very large landowners, members of another place. That is common knowledge. But who were the people who had been treated very badly They were the owners of destroyed house property, masters of fishing vessels, men of the mercantile marine on torpedoed ships, ex-prisoners of war, the orphans and widows of people killed in air raids, and poor lodging house people whose buildings and furniture were destroyed. There was a pledge that they would be compensated, but what did the unfortunate merchant seamen get whose ship was torpedoed, and who suffered from exposure and was thrown out of employment? In one case the master and owner of a smack whose claim was admitted at £1,200 for the loss of his fishing vessel got £51. Hon. Gentlemen may remember the sinking of the hospital ship "Llandovery Castle." The engineer of that ship left a wife and two little boys, and they got £90. What protest has there been from the party opposite against such cases?
We have in the last few days from these benches asked for a reconsideration of these claims. We have invited this particular class of sufferer to come forward and help themselves. The same pressure should have been brought by the Conservative party on behalf of these unfortunate Englishmen who were not serving any one political party, but were serving the nation and were promised full reparations, but have not had it on the plea of economy—the plea that was rejected and hurled back at the Government by the right hon. Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil), who was cheered when he rejected the plea. The one class of claimant are the political allies of the Government; the Colonial Secretary said that they were supporters of the Government; these other people are poor, disorganised and scattered, and many of the sailors had been abroad for years and had not known of the claims that they could make, and they have been refused a penny because the money has been exhausted. Because they are not organised and have not friends, who wear the strawberry leaves, they are treated in the way that I have described. My hon. Friend spoke of the humbug on the part of the Colonial Secretary in trying to cover up his leader's shame in throwing him over. But the humbug is that of the whole party it is more it is hypocrisy for them to look after a certain class and neglect the people to whom they owe a duty.

Sir ALFRED HOPKINSON: Last week one came into the House rather unhappy about this question, but one comes back this week very happy for various reasons. One is that some of us who are supporters of the Government have tried to keep an independent mind, and we are thoroughly well satisfied, better than we have ever been before, with the Government in general. I am 'also proud of the House of Commons, because we know that, when there is a question which any Members of Parliament believe to be a question of justice and right and honour, they try to act without party ties and even to go to the length of opposing the Government. I am very clad to feel that in this case we have a Chancellor of the Exchequer who is very careful indeed, and I wish that all sides of the House were equally careful. There is something beyond that: it is that we shall honour
what we regard as a debt of honour. Are these debts of honour or not?
There is a fly in the ointment. I am one of those people who have a certain amount of fellow-feeling from many points of view with Members who sit on the benches opposite. In this case, however, I feel sorry the party opposite have taken the line they have. I wish they had taken the course of saying that for once they would forgo the opportunity of seeking to make party advantage out of a case of this kind. My sense of justice made me feel rather strongly while the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) was speaking. I think he was doing an injustice to himself and to his intelligence, of which have a very high opinion, when he said, "What is the difference between these Irish claims and the claims which are put forward on behalf of a large number of other very deserving people?" We are faced here with the same problem with which we are often confronted in private life. We have many claims from most deserving people, to which we should be only too glad to respond, but the fact that we regard their claims as deserving is no reason why we should not pay those to whom we owe a debt of honour. This case goes far beyond any question of party. We on this side care nothing about strawberry leaves. I cannot imagine myself in a pact with strawberry leaves, as was suggested by the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull. We simply look at this as a question of justice and right.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for interrupting him, is he aware that the seamen and others to whom I referred were promised full compensation, and that that is just as much a debt of honour?

Sir A. HOPKINSON: If there is a case for them, let the hon. and gallant Member raise it at the proper time, but not on this Vote, and if he makes out an adequate case we will act in accordance with what we feel to be right. But the cases differ toto caelo. [HON. MEMBERS: "They are poor people!"] Really, does any hon. Member say that we who have taken the course of pressing this claim upon our party are influenced two straws by the fact that some of these people are
well off? Not in the least. That is absolutely wrong, and I challenge anyone who knows us here on this side to say that we have been influenced in the least degree by the fact that some of these people are well-to-do.

Mr. MONTAGUE: I say so.

Sir A. HOPKINSON: Is it said that we ought not to pay a debt of honour because some of the people may be well off? These claims came from people who lost their property simply because we drove them out from citizenship of the United Kingdom in spite of the fact that they did not wish to be driven out. Because they had served us these people had their property destroyed: Every bit of what these poor farmers had was burnt, and their wives and children were reduced to hiding. These are the people whom we drove out, whom we deprived of their ordinary means of defence; and in those circumstances we say emphatically that they have an absolute right to look to us, as a matter of honour, for compensation. It is not merely a matter of compassion. As I have said, we felt so strongly on this matter that we opposed our own Government, which we admire so much, and more than ever now. By and by hon. Members will see in the country the effect of the manly and straightforward action which the Government took.
We have these miserable quibbles about the status of the Wood: Renton Committee —the question of whether it was a tribunal or an awarding body, or whether the members of the Committee were arbitrators or merely an advisory committee. To plain men the plain facts are these, that the Wood Renton Committee were appointed to decide whether each claim was a right claim or not. I have sat on similar tribunals. The first duty of that tribunal would be to see whether some of the claims were exaggerated—some of them certainly would be. [Interruption.] Some of them were rejected in tato. They went through those claims one by one, rejecting some and reducing others. I call the Wood Renton Committee a tribunal. Hon. Members may call them arbitrators or an advisory committee. I do not care a rush what they are called. They were a body appointed to say how many of these claims were just and proper claims, and which of them we were bound in honour to pay. They made their award, in many cases
making large reductions in the amount claimed. To my mind it is a most miserable quibble to say that somebody was not there to represent the taxpayers. The tribunal itself was guarding the pockets of the British taxpayers. It was the duty of the Tribunal to see that no claim which was not reasonable and proper and proved should be admitted. We are sorry that in connection with this matter the Opposition should put forward a number of other points which are utterly irrelevant. As I have said, it sometimes takes a long time to get things into the heads of those who are unwilling to receive them, though one could do it readily if only they were not prejudiced.
I can sum this whole position up very shortly. These claims are not compassionate claims, they are absolute debts of honour, owing to the position in which we stand in relation to these men, and those of us on this side of the House who took the course we took the other day are not—and you know it—influenced in the least degree by the fact that some of these people are wealthy, though some are not. We are influenced solely by the fact that we know that the claims are just. No honourable nation, having driven these men out from the citizenship which they claimed as citizens of the United Kingdom, could fail to treat this as other than a debt of honour. The only crime, of these people was that they desired to remain with us, and we drove them out and deprived them of the ordinary means of defence. I have never felt more ardent in my support of this Government, and have never felt more sorry that the Opposition have not taken the higher and patriotic course of saying, "We will not attempt to make party capital out of this matter; we will rise above party considerations and do the honourable thing by people who trusted us."

Sir OSWALD MOSLEY: The hon. and learned Member for the English Universities (Sir A. Hopkinson) observed that never before had he been so pleased with the Government which he supports. I can well believe him, and I venture to congratulate him upon an occasion so felicitous. The hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir W. Davison) is still apparently not entirely satisfied with the Government, and there was an exchange of those domestic amenities be-
tween him and the Front Bench to which this controversy has accustomed us. I am prepared to leave the pig versus kangaroo controversy be settled by the fireside of the Carlton Club. I would rather examine the differences over the merits of this matter which still seem to exist between the back benches opposite and the Treasury Bench. The hon. and learned Member for the English Universities said these payments were a debt of honour. The right hon. Gentleman who reintroduced the Vote for the Government stated once again that they are ex gratia payments and in no way a debt of honour, and that difference of opinion, a very big and fundamental difference, still exists despite the yielding of the Government to pressure. In considering this question we ought surely to arrive at some conclusion as to whether this is, in fact, a debt of honour or a compassionate ex gratia grant. If it be a debt of honour, then obviously it ought to he paid in full. In that event the hon. and learned Gentleman is perfectly correct, and the debt ought to be paid in full irrespective of whether the victims he rich or poor.
If, on the other hand it is a purely compassionate grant then other considerations arise. In that case we have to consider not only the situation of the victims but also the situation of national finance. The Government receiving advice from the Committee which it constituted and weighing that advice against the situation of national finance will arrive at a conclusion on which it should abide. The position of the Government is that these grants are purely ex gratia and that no debt of honour is involved. That opinion is overwhelmingly supported by the evidence before us. The tribunal which was set up was not a tribunal sitting to judge questions of honour or legal obligations. It has been stated in this Debate that the Treasury could not he represented before the Tribunal, and the Secretary of State for the Dominions strove to throw some doubt upon that statement. Nevertheless the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer are perfectly clear for the right hon. Gentleman said:
There was no case where the Treasury counsel could advance arguments against the
claims made by the parties, and canvass and criticise their credentials, such as is done when any Income Tax ease is fought in any Court with the greatest vigour."—OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th February, 1929; col. 1004, Vol. 225.]
If this was a debt of honour and the tribunal was to make definite awards of a binding and legal character surely it is clear that the Treasury would be represented and would cross-examine and by every means within its power would strive to reduce the claims. Can anybody doubt that if the Treasury had been so represented and had fought these cases that those claims would have been very substantially reduced? No such procedure was adopted. We have an advisory committee examining these claims quite independently without Treasury representation and finally the Committee submits its advice to the Government which then makes up its mind on compassionate grounds how much it shall pay to meet those claims.
Surely from the constitution of this tribunal and the evidence laid before it it is perfectly evident that the whole function of this Committee was advisory, that the whole nature of the grants was compassionate and ex gratia and that the Government have in no way shifted from the moral view it originally took of the position, but has made another of those jumps which the Chancellor of the Exchequer described last Tuesday. The compassion of the Government is extended under compulsion. This is no revised conception of honour, no adjustment of the fundamental difference between the front and back benches. This is a yielding of the Treasury and an ignoble surrender to the elements which permanently dominate the Conservative party.
We have seen in this Debate the real spirit of Conservatism, we have seen the phenomenon which in other Parliaments we have been very familiar. This is a stampede of the more obscure denizens of the nether Tory jungle led by the usual witch doctor of these occasions, the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University (Sir H. Cecil). This is the real power behind Conservatism. The men who revolted successfully on this occasion were the men who overthrew the Coalition Government, the men who created the present Prime Minister and lifted him from obscurity to the position
he holds to-day. They were the men who drove the Prime Minister into the disastrous election of 1923, and they are now driving him to the far greater disaster of 1929. Usually there are some uneasy signs that these elements in Conservatism are going to revolt. We usually hear certain rumblings and premonitory gruntings before the charge is made. This time without warning of any kind the whole herd broke cover in a very formidable charge. The Prime Minister understood too well who created him to get in its way. He nimbly sidestepped with that happy comparison of his fellows to the pigs of his native Worcestershire which was doubtless a subconscious tribute to their Gaderene tendencies.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer was not so quick. He is never afraid and he never learns. He stood firm in the centre of the road fixing the herd with his hypnotic eye and was knocked straight over on his back. The Chancellor of the Exchequer should have known better. They put him down before. They have put him down once again, and one of these days they will put him down for ever. The Chancellor is paying the penalty of all living spirits who seem masters. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has an unfair weight to carry in the race, and I am afraid that to the end of the chapter he will appear as a racehorse with a donkey strapped upon his back. The right hon. Gentleman might halve left the Conservative party in its original position which was so aptly described by Mr. Derrick and is now so aptly illustrated in the person of the present Prime Minister, "Sublime mediocrity at the head of an inveterate prejudice." They understand each other and there is little room for genius in between.
With regard to the fate of the Chancellor of the Exchequer yet another unfortunate incident has occurred. The keynote of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's election campaign has been very rudely shattered. He now finds it impossible to criticise or attack effectively either the policy of the Labour party or the character of its leaders. Consequently he proceeds to suggest on every platform that the Labour party was not governed by its authorised leaders, but was subject to the continuous domination of the rebels who sit on the back benches. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer says that the Labour party are not governed from the. Front Bench, but from some unknown and unseen committee which pulls the invisible strings, and he says that the Labour leaders are merely marionettes.
We have never discovered where this mysterious committee meets which governs the Labour party, but we have discovered where the committee meets which governs the Government. It meets in the back parlour of Messrs. Bass and Gretton, and from that rustic seclusion are issued the edicts which govern the Conservative Front Bench. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Burton (Colonel Gretton) pulls the wires, the marionettes begin to dance on the Government Front Bench. Who is the marionette of this performance? The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the man of destiny, now a pathetic, dangling figure. So much for the charge that has been urged with such force, such venom, and such vehemence against the Labour party, that we are a party governed from without, not subject to the leadership of our authorised leaders. As for the Prime Minister, may we once again venture to congratulate him on his prescience, his sagacity, and his thoroughly English qualities which are to carry the next election? He put his colleagues in front to he shot at, while he himself led the army from the rear with more discretion than valour. The Prime Minister is mating quite a speciality of throwing over his colleagues in these days. It is the latest manifestation of honesty. He may not be a good companion for a tiger hurt, or even for a pig hunt, but every time he runs away he proves afresh the honesty of his convicions. On this occasion once again the plain, simple man has revised his former opinions and has decided to pay a debt of honour. I will not wander beyond the scope of order to remind the Prime Minister at length of other debts of honour which remain to he paid—the pledge which secured the calling off of the general strike—

The CHAIRMAN: Surely that cannot be in order on this Vote?

Sir O. MOSLEY: I was not going to wander at length from the scope of order, but was only going, and I will not pursue the subject, to remind the Prime Minister that there were other pledges—pledges to the poor and to the
Oppressed—which had been banded out with both hands by his Government and have been most shamefully betrayed. A debt is only a debt of honour when one's friends want money. Before long this country may take a different view of honour. This incident and this Debate have exposed Conservatism in something of its primitive nakedness, and now, shivering in the cold of this new dishonour, it awaits the stigma of the electorate.

Viscount SANDON: I have been moved to intervene in this discussion by the remarks of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. He talked a good deal, I suppose for our edification, about the real spirit of Conservatism. There may, I suppose, be deduced from the discussion to-day arid that of last Tuesday week the real spirit of Socialism, and it seems to me that the real spirit of Socialism has been shown to us by the attitude of hon. Members to-day, who, one after another, have been criticising this Vote. The hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. W. Benn) was most vehement in criticising the Vote, not, perhaps, on any grounds of tactics, such as we have been thinking of to-day, but on its intrinsic merits; and yet last Tuesday week all those hon. Gentlemen opposite were keen and ready to vote against the Government taking the line which they themselves are now taking to-day. [Interruption.] It was on the specific issue of this Vote for the Irish loyalists, and it seems to me that, if hon. Gentlemen opposite were so eager to go into the Lobby against the Government, the only deduction to be drawn from that was that they were opposed to that Vote, and associated themselves with the line taken by certain hon. Gentlemen on this side.

Mr. THOMAS: I immediately give the Noble Lord the opportunity of following up his argument showing how inconsistent we were last week in being prepared to go into the Lobby, as he rightly said, with him and his friends. It was because we believed that £400,000 would be a cheap price for the country to get rid of this Government.

Mr. SOMERVILLE: In that case, supposing that a Socialist Government came into office, would they undertake to pay this money?

The CHAIRMAN: I do not think we can have an interruption of an interrupter.

Viscount SANDON: What the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Mr. Thomas) has just said may sound very convincing to him, but the fact remains that, if a Vote had been taken, as no doubt he would have liked, his name and those of his colleagues would have been recorded as voting in the direction of the extra grant to these people, for future generations to see. I quite recognise that hon. Gentlemen opposite have had a fine field-day, and no one has enjoyed it more than myself. I have been called many worse things than a pig—after all, a very estimable animal—in my day, but, talking about the Government changing their attitude, it would be far more appropriate to say that hon. Gentlemen opposite were a lot of chameleons themselves.

Sir BERTRAM FALLE: It seems to me that the Government are being very unjustly blamed because last Tuesday week they took notice of the pressure of their own followers, but any Government, or, at any rate, any Conservative Government, would be wanting in common sense if they did not consider it expedient to take notice of the pressure of their own followers. Possibly other Governments are able to ride rough-shod over their own people, but we are not accustomed to such treatment. In my opinion, the Government were only doing what was right and proper in taking notice of the pressure of their own people.
A few years ago, the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) and myself were interested in certain poor people, and we succeeded, by a Motion in this House, in getting the matter considered by the Government of the day. The Government then took notice of the pressure of the whole House, and gave us a Committee. That Committee decided by three votes to two —the two being Socialist Members—not to open the matter. The Government at that time was a Socialist Government, and soon the time had passed when t was possible to bring more presure against them. The Chairman of the Committee, who was a very well known and honourable lawyer, voted, I believe, strictly according to the principles of law. The two Socialists
voted for what they considered to be right, and the other member of the Committee was a naval officer, who, I believe, also voted perfectly in accordance with his views; but within a very few weeks he was given a permanent appointment at rather a large salary—

The CHAIRMAN: I must say I do not see what relevance this has to the Vote we are discussing.

Sir B. FALLE: I was referring to what has been said from the other side about the Government taking notice of the pressure of their own people. In that case there was no pressure from their own side, and we could not bring any pressure from our side; and, as they wished to avoid opening the matter, they did so.

The CHAIRMAN: I cannot see any connection or analogy between that and the present Vote.

Sir B. FALLE: It was only in answer to hon. Members opposite, who said that pressure should not be brought to bear upon the Government by its own followers. I think that we were perfectly right in putting pressure upon the Government, and I rejoice that this is one of the instances, which are really rare in our history, in which we have helped those who were loyal to us, and who, in the opinion of many outside this House, were deserted and even betrayed. We held to them, and we do hold to them. We brought our views before the Government and, as I believe honestly and rightly, they listened to those views and decided that these people, whether rich or poor—because justice, after all, should not pay any attention to riches or poverty—deserved well of their country and of their Government, and that they should be fairly and properly recompensed.

Mr. TINKER: I take exception to the way this matter has been handled. If the Cabinet had dealt with it as it ought to have done, we should have taken no exception. The Secretary for the Colonies said he had examined the question thoroughly and felt that justice had been done to these people. The Chancellor of the Exchequer left no doubt as to where he stood on the matter. They had dealt with the claims in the best possible way and they could not go
any further. If the Government felt they had to deal with the matter in the way they are dealing with it now, they ought to have taken all the evidence before a judicial committee and examined the claims thoroughly and decided that they were justified, but the Government have not done that and we, as an Opposition, have a right to criticise the Cabinet that deals with a case like this in a slipshod manner. I say nothing on the merits of the case. My criticism is levelled at the way the whole question has been handled. We should not be doing our duty if we allowed a thing like this to pass without drawing attention to what has happened. The Government gave way to a section of their followers, not because they believed in the justice of the thing, but because they were afraid of defeat. If the Secretary for Dominion Affairs or the Chancellor of the Exchequer now said, "Against our better thoughts and our better desires, we have had to give way because of pressure from our people," that would have been the right way to meet the situation. They have not done that. The Secretary for the Colonies has said, "We made a mistake before. We overlooked the justice of this claim. Now we will do justice." The Chancellor of the Exchequer has not had the courage to face it. He has gone away without answering at all. Because of the way the whole matter has been handled, I am protesting against the attitude of the Government. If these people could make out a good case, the Government ought to say, "We are going to pay them what we think is right." They have not done that, hence my condemnation of the way they have handled the situation.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported upon Monday next.

Committee to sit again upon Monday next.

Orders of the Day — PENSIONS (GOVERNORS OF DOMINIONS, ETC.) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This Bill has its origin in two facts: The first is that the pensions of Governors, as opposed to the pensions of all other Colonial civil servants, are regulated by Statute, all the others being regulated by local pensions Ordinances in the various Colonies. The last Statute on this subject, the governing Statute, was passed before the War, in 1911, and since that date two things have happened. There has come into association with the British Empire a new form of dependency for which Governors have to be provided, namely, mandated territories, and, unless there is a change in the Statute, it will not be possible to pay the same pension to the Governor of any mandated territory as is paid to the Governors of Colonies and Protectorates, mandated territories having come into existence since 1911. So legislation in any case is necessary. It is also clear that all other civil servants have had their pensions reconsidered in the light of changes in the value of money. My right hon. Friend therefore decided to set up a small committee to go into what was necessary to do justice to the Governors vis-à-vis all other types of civil servants. That Committee was composed of Lord Buxton as Chairman, the party on this side was represented by that stern economist the Member for York (Sir J. Marriott), the party opposite by the hon. Member for East Woolwich (Mr. Snell), and the Liberal party by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir R. Hamilton). A senior Treasury official who had detailed experience of the working of pension matters also served on the Committee. They came to a unanimous conclusion and presented a report which has been laid before Parliament as Command Paper 3059. This Bill is in the main to give effect to the recommendations of that Committee, and to apply the Pensions Act of 1911 to mandated territories.
Clause l increases the rate of pension which will be paid, and the maximum to which pensions can be computed on the proposed new scale. Practically the whole of this Measure applies to those who have been long in the service of the Crown and who started before in the home Civil Service or in one of the Colonial services and have
worked up to the position of Governor. Clause 2, therefore, enables an ex-Civil Service Governor who has completed ten years' service as Governor to take a pension under the Superannuation Acts based upon his last Civil Service salary if this would be more to his advantage than the ordinary Governor's pension. This would make it possible to avoid the anomaly which would result gram a senior civil servant in one of the larger Colonies being appointed to a governorship in one of the lower classes. Hon. Members will see that Colonies are graded into different classes according to their size and importance, and that Malaya, Ceylon, and Nigeria, and the like, are in a higher class than the Bahamas or Gambia or similar Colonies. This Clause will enable a retiring Governor to obtain whichever is the better pension, either the Governor's pension or the Civil Service pension.
The main point in Clause 3 is to clear up technical defects in the existing Acts under which no pension can be granted to an ex-Civil Service Governor who has not completed 10 years as Governor and has not reached the age of 60 and for whom no further employment is available. The Clause is dated back to 1922 in order to cover the case of one ex-Civil Service Governor who retired then and has not yet received any pension.
Clause 4 provides for the payment of a death gratuity to an ex-Civil Service Governor who dies in service and whose estate would be eligible for such gratuity if he had died while holding his last Civil Service appointment. This only applies at present to Governors appointed from the home Civil Service such as the present Governor of Nigeria, but not to the Governor of the Gold Coast, who is an ex-Colonial civil servant. Clause 5 applies to cases where under present: circumstances a pension is to be reduced on re-employment and allows the reduction to be waived in cases of purely temporary employment lasting for less than one year. The remaining Clauses lay down the necessary provisions for bringing Governors and High Commissioners of mandated territories, including Palestine and Iraq, and the Resident at Aden, who has recently come under the Colonial Office, into the scope of the Act. I need not say any more except to call attention to one point, and that is that, having gone very carefully into the
matter, the Committee were unanimously of the opinion that the question of the pensions of Governors who retired before this Committee investigated the matter should not be reopened. I will read what the Committee recommend:
We recommend that any changes in the rates and conditions of pension which may be made as a result of this report should not apply to persons who have already left the Service, but should apply, generally speaking, retrospectively to all Governors who are in the Service at the time when the changes are introduced. We consider, however, that provision should be made in one special case which has been brought to our notice
3.0.p.m.
—that is the case that I have mentioned already as having been dealt with in Clause 4. It is quite clear that it would be impossible to reopen the cases of those Governors who finished their service some years before the Committee went into the question of what justice demanded in the future. That was the unanimous recommendation of the. Committee, and has been agreed to by the Treasury. It safeguards the taxpayer and is in accordance with the general rule of the Service. It would lead to a whole series of precedents right through the Civil Service if we reopened the alder cases.

Mr. THOMAS: I am quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman must feel pleased with himself to-day that he is not in the role of his chief with a number of his own friends wanting something more. This Bill is long overdue, for this reason. There must be changes which are really necessary at this moment in our Colonial Service, and they ought to he immediately dealt with. Equally, one must keep in mind that the unfair anomalous system that exists to-day prevents re-arrangements which I certainly think are necessary. There is another point which this Bill raises. My hon. Friend the Member for East Woolwich '(Mr. Snell) made a reservation on the Committee. It was a justifiable reservation, and one which, though I am not sure that it can be dealt with in this Bill, will have to be faced in the future. That question is: How long are we to continue a system which—I do not say in the main—prevents people with all the qualifications, all the character and all the experience necessary, from taking up the position of Governor, merely because
of their limited means? This is common knowledge on both sides of the House, and everyone who has had to deal with this question knows perfectly well that this is one of the scandals. When one considers the tremendous responsibility of our civil servants and of our Governors and of our white population who go into these tropical countries, an opportunity ought to be given to the very best men it is possible to obtain. We are all agreed on that, and yet there are scores of cases which I have in mind where, the barrier is merely one of wealth. This question ought to be tackled and seriously faced. There is the other side of it. What is worse than that someone who has held the responsible position of Governor—who, after all, is the representative of His Majesty with all the prestige and position attached to the post—should come back and merely struggle along for a miserable existence? That is neither dignified nor creditable, and it is something which must deter sensitive men from taking these positions.
Therefore, all these factors ought to be considered. At the present, time we may say to a very distinguished civil servant: "Will you take the further responsibility to which both your experience and your service entitles you? In our judgment, you are the best man for the job." If he responds to that national request, he is immediately put into the position that he has to suffer in his pension, because he discharges a public duty. It is absurd to continue such an anomaly. There are some of my friends who feel, and quite rightly so, that they do not oppose the principle of the Bill merely because it tries to rectify a wrong, but because they say, and I cannot help associating myself with many of them in this respect, "Whilst you are rectifying these anomalies, whilst you are dealing with these abuses, whilst you are dealing with people in positions of high responsibility, why not also tackle the abuses at the lower end of the scale?"
That is a sentiment which I understand and appreciate, and that is a position which I should like to see rectified. On the other hand, we all feel that it is not sufficient merely to continue a wrong and not rectify it. It is a good thing to draw attention to all wrongs, but it is equally bad to refuse to rectify one wrong because you do not do the bigger thing. My
hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East gave important time and attention to the proceedings of the Committee, and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will admit that he made a valuable contribution to the work of the Committee. He signed the Report, which emphasises the need for rectifying the anomalies which I have described. For these reasons, I hope that the Bill will speedily become, law.

Mr. TINKER: It is not my intention to oppose the Bill. The Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs is looking after certain people by seeking to right a wrong, and that involves some financial responsibility for the State. It is well, while this Bill is before the House, that we should let it be known what will be the cost, particularly as the Financial Resolution was passed through without Debate. This Bill will increase the unit of pension in four classes: In Class I, from, £5 to £6; in Class II, from £4 to £5; Class III, from £3 to £4, and Class IV, from £2 to £3.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: Each grade gets an advance of £1 per month.

Mr. TINKER: Twelve pounds per annum. There is also a statement that the increase of pension goes up from £1,300 to £2,000, and that involves about £6,000 annually. I recall a remark made by the right hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Macpherson). He said that he looked upon pensions as deferred pay, and that anybody occupying a Civil position ought to look forward to a pension at the end of his time in the Service. I agree with that principle, if carried out all round. If I can get an assurance from the Government and from hon. Members opposite, that on other occasions when pensions are involved they will help us to readjust matters, I would say at once that we are in hearty agreement with the steps that are being taken to place people who are at present in high positions on to a fair footing with regard to pensions. When we attempted to readjust other pensions we got no help from the party opposite. It was said that it would be an additional expense to the State and our request was refused. We tried to get several injustices under the Widows' and Orphans' Contributory Pensions Act put right, but the Minister of Health told us that it would cost too much and could not be done.
This is where I blame hon. Members opposite. We have just been dealing with the case of Irish loyalists and now we have this proposal, but when we attempt to remedy wrongs which obtain in the case of other pensioners we receive no assistance at all. If hon. Members opposite were genuine they would assist us because the people for whom we speak certainly need these pensions. Only this week I asked the Home Secretary to try and remedy an injustice under the Workmen's Compensation Act, but I got no response at all except that there was not time to attend to it. These are the things which urge hon. Members on this side to make known to the country what is happening, and, although we are not carrying the point any further this afternoon, I cannot allow this occasion to pass without emphasising, as strongly as I can, these other injustices which, I think, should be put right, and I am hoping that hon. Members opposite will take the next opportunity of helping us in matters with which we are deeply concerned.

Sir B. FALLE: The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies has said that the Committee decided that it was impossible to re-open the case of these Governors. I should like to ask him why he makes use of the word "impossible." These Governors have done very arduous work and went through a, time of tremendous responsibility during the War. They are very few in number, and I am quite sure he will be able to tell us why it should be impossible to inquire into these few cases and put them right. I appreciate the fact that this pension scheme is brought in in a Measure for the Governors of mandated territories. The simpler plan would be to increase the pay of these Governors on the clear understanding that their pensions should be based on the old rate of pay. That seems to me would have met the trouble, but I should like an explanation why any investigation into the matter is impossible. That is not quite sufficient for most people.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I gather that the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, North (Sir B. Falle) is asking that the Bill should be made retrospective.

Sir B. FALLE: Yes, for one year.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I do not want to follow the hon. and gallant Member, but rather to emphasise what has been said by the two hon. Members who have already spoken from these benches. It seems curious that a chief secretary to a Colonial Governor should receive a higher pension when he retires than the Governor himself. That is an anomaly which you will find throughout professional life. Many successful barristers are much better off than the Judges before whom they plead, and I have heard it stated that some hon. Members made sacrifices when they accepted office in the Government. I could quote cases from the Navy, to show that the captain of a ship receives not only a smaller pension, but has had less pay than his chief engineer. I dare say that there are similar cases both in the Army and the Air Force. Nevertheless they are anomalies and it is just that they should be put right. But I am rather surprised that this Bill has been brought forward now, in view of the way in which the Government time is mortgaged. The Government have taken the whole of private Members' time because of the urgency of public business and the glut of Bills. Again and again we have asked for Measures to be brought in, in reference to matters like workmen's compensation. One glaring example is provided by the colliery companies. The Government admit the injustice in such a case but cannot find time for the Bill. But they can find time to raise to £2,000 the pensions of those who now receive only £1,300.
What is the urgency there, compared with the urgency in the case of the working man who is injured at the coal face and who, because a company goes into liquidation, has no sort of redress under the Workmen's Compensation Act? Then take other pension cases. A day or two ago we were given an answer, from which it appears that up to the end of last year 25,208 widows lost their pensions because their youngest child had reached the age of 14, and the 5s. allowance of the youngest child was also stopped. These are the things that we would rather see dealt with immediately. This is one-sided legislation. The Bill by itself is just and right, but it deals with only one class of the community. This afternoon we have passed a subsidy for the Government of Northern Ireland,
because it is politically allied to the Imperial Government. We have passed an unknown liability for the Government's political friends in Southern Ireland, and now we are passing this third Bill in order that Colonial Governors shall enjoy higher pensions.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: They are lint politicians.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: No, but they come from the governing class—the class from which the hon. Gentleman and I come.

Lord ERSKINE: What about O'Grady?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: He does not come under this Bill. The Noble Lord had better make further inquiry.

Mr. THOMAS: I think the Noble Lord has said something which ought not to have been said. I think it is recognised that Governors, whoever selects them, and from whatever party they may be selected, once they become Governors are the King's representatives and as such should not be subject to any sneers from the Noble Lord or anyone else in this House. I feel it necessary to say that in defence of one who is, I believe, giving satisfaction to everybody.

Lord ERSKINE: rose—

Colonel GRETTON: May I say—

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I think I was in possession of the House. I wan not making any sneers at all. I said that the majority of the people whom this Bill is intended to benefit come from the governing class. There is no sneer there. It is no dishonour yet to belong to the Under-Secretary's class or mine.

Mr. ORMSBY-GORE: I do not belong to any class. As regards the Colonial Governors and the members of the Colonial service, no question of class enters into the matter at any stage of their careers. All this snobbery, in the name of party, about distinctions of class is perfectly disgusting.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: The right hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. He belongs to one of the Estates of the Realm and I am in exactly the same position. We both
belong to a certain order, and to say we do not belong to a class is absolute nonsense. To say that the majority of Colonial Governors, and members of the Colonial service do not come from a distinctly governing class, is sheer humbug. Of course they do, and there is no snobbery in saying it. We talk about members of the working class without being accused of snobbery and, when we talk about the governing class, we make a perfectly well-understood distinction concerning which there should be no allegation of snobbery. I did not think at all of the case of the Governor of Tasmania, and certainly I would not sneer at him at all. I understand, as have said, that he does not come under the Bill. There is, of course, from our point of view a case for increasing these pensions on the ground that you will not have to draw all your Governors from the moneyed class, but there is a far stronger case for dealing with those widows and other members of the working class who have been mentioned. I hope I will not be accused of snobbery if I make a distinction between payments to these Governors and payments to widows whose treatment by the State has been mean and shabby.
I recognise that two wrongs will not make a right and we would not help these people by leaving any injustice to operate in the case of these Colonial Governors. The Under-Secretary can hurl as many insults at me as he likes. I do not mind in the least, but I wish he and his political party were as anxious to remove injustices from these deserving classes as they are to help those who come from well-to-do families and who, though they may be in financial difficulties, are not in actual want. We plead again and again for people on the border line of starvation and what help do we get from hon. Members opposite? They are loyal members of the Government. They cannot revolt. They must obey the party Whips and play the game, and that is the end of it. It is not good enough, and while two wrongs do not make a right, and I do not want to vote against the Bill, I protest against a Government which cannot find time to remove flagrant and glaring injustices being able to find time to bring in such Measures as we have had to-day.

Mr. BATEY: The Dominions Secretary has told us he does not belong to one class. I was born and bred into the working class.

Mr. SPEAKER: That is only a side issue.

Mr. BATEY: I am prepared to let that drop if you do not desire us to continue on that line, Mr. Speaker. But I want to join in the protest against what one regards as the unfair action of the Government in being so eager to increase the pensions of these privileged people. The first Order this morning showed that the Government are anxious to deal with these questions before they leave office, and this Bill also shows an anxiety on their part to deal with privileged people while they still have the power. We say that if the Government want to deal with pensions, surely there is a case for the Government dealing with pensions all round. These Dominion Governors would in any case receive pensions of £1,300 a year, and this proposal is to increase them to £2,000 a year. We find that this involves an increased demand on the Treasury of between £5,000 and £6,000 a year. Well, if the Government have got £6,000 a year to spare, we submit that that sum would provide pensions for 230 people who are not receiving any pension at all at the moment. Our protest is a protest because at the present time a working man, not after 10 years' service but after 51 years' service, has to be content with a pension of 228 a year, which is not sufficient to enable a man to live as he ought to live.
I have a case in mind of a man who paid into the National Insurance scheme from its start. He went to Canada for two years on his doctor's order, to benefit his health. He then came back and was in work for five years, and when he reached the age of 63 he found he was not entitled to an old age pension, but that he must wait until he is 70 years of age. He is unable to work or to draw unemployment benefit, and he has to exist on Poor Law relief. There are hundreds of cases like that, and we say that the Government could have spent this money to far better advantage. The Government do not see it in this light, but, as a matter of fact, they have given to us some of the best material we could have for the coming General Election. We can go to our working-class Divisions
and say, "This is the way in which the Government treat the different classes of people in this country." First there were the Foreign Office pensions, then the Diplomatic pensions, then the Judicial Committee pensions, and now we have the Dominion Governors' pensions. So the Government enable us to go to the working class and to say, "You have to starve on £26 a year, or to exist on Poor Law relief until you are 70 years of age, yet at the same time the Government is finding public money to increase the pensions of these privileged people." The working class will judge the Government on their action in this matter.

Mr. KELLY: I really must offer my protest against the method adopted by the Government in this matter of pensions. Like my colleagues, I am not going to divide the House upon this Bill, but I do wish to point out how the Government treat some of their servants much differently than they treat others. Men who have spent years in the service of the War Department or the Admiralty-20, 30, 40, or even 50 years, as I am reminded by the hon. Member for East Woolwich (Mr. Snell)—and then are discharged without a, pension. I know there is a gratuity, but that goes a very small way indeed to the man who has rendered such service to the country. Every effort we have made to secure their being made pensionable has been turned down by the Government. In the case of the Admiralty, every attempt on behalf of these men has been turned down by the Government, not only in the matter of pension, but even in the small matter of the Government treating these industrial employés to a week's holiday with pay. Even that has been refused by the Government, although it is given by other employers to the extent of 1,500,000 workpeople. The Government lag behind. When it comes to pensions, as the hon. Member for Spennymoor (Mr. Batey) has pointed out, all those who have a better chance than these industrial employés of the Government to make some provision for the period after their service, are the ones who have the first consideration. While not opposing this Measure at this time, I hold that it is the duty of the Government to look after these other employés
of theirs, and to see that they have pensions. The very least they could do even now would be to arrange that those in their service should have an opportunity of a week's holiday with pay this year.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: I want to protest at the way the Government are dealing with the various classes of people. I have in my mind at the moment the ease of a man who was severely injured and ought to be drawing a pension, but has been refused it. Would it not be much better for the Government to look into the cases of people who cannot do without some help in their old age? The Government are looking after Irish loyalists and others, but will give nothing to people who need it in this country. They may say they cannot afford to pay pensions to people under 65. They refuse to give pensions which are absolutely essential on grounds of economy. I admit that these people are doing national work, but they do no more national work than the man who goes into the mine to hew coal. I know of a woman who had a son and she got a pension for a short time because her daughter was not 14 years of age. Her son left her to get married, and that woman is now drawing relief from the guardians when she ought to be receiving 10s. a week pension. Not only are you depriving people who are poor and needy of their pensions, but you are throwing increased burdens on the ratepayers by compelling them to go to the guardians. The Measure to give pensions to widows was introduced with a great flourish of trumpets by the Conservative party, but there are thousands who are in need of help and are deprived of it. Yet the Government can afford to give pensions to people who can manage to get on without them. I plead with the Government to do some good during the remainder of their term of office and to do justice to the people who need their help. If it were not for the poor helping the poor, this country would not be so tranquil as it is, and the Government should help those who need help rather than such people as they are being assisted by this Measure.

Mr. AMERY: I do not complain that the introduction of this Measure should have been utilised as an opportunity to
draw attention to the fact that there are other anomalies besides those which this Measure proposes to redress. That is perfectly true and, indeed, some of them may intrinsically be greater hardships. There is a real difference between this Measure and some of the matters which have been introduced into the discussion. This Measure deals with a limited grievance which has been investigated with the greatest care by a Committee in which all parties of the House were represented, and about which the Committee were unanimous. Therefore, we believed it would be possible, without waste of Parliamentary time, and by agreement between the parties, to make progress with a reform which, while it may not go as deep in our social life as other reforms which are well worthy of the attention of the House, is yet of national importance as well as of importance to the individuals. It will help us to secure the most capable and most efficient men, from whatever class of society they may have originated, to carry on the affairs of the Colonial Empire, which is not only a source of justifiable pride but also a matter of vital interest to every industry and to every class in the community. Therefore: I hope that hon. Members opposite, having drawn attention to the fact that this Measure deals only with a small corner of the field of anomalies which exist in our lives, will now be satisfied.
There is, of course, another anomaly, from the point of view of abstract justice, to which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Sir B. Falle) drew attention, and that is the case of men who slaved and toiled in the past, retired some years ago, and are now living on perhaps a very slender pension. They have done quite as great service to the State as those who retired in the last twelve months or will retire in the future; but it was felt by the Committee that to open that question would involve the whole question of retrospective increases of pension for Colonial civil servants and, indeed, for other classes. Therefore, though sacrificing abstract justice, in order to get on and do practical justice the Committee limited the field of their recommendation. What is felt with regard to the anomaly as between one set of governors and another, applies, of course, no less to the anomalies be-
tween helping this particular and deserving class and helping other classes who are no doubt as fully or even more deserving. This is a practical measure of redress, which in no sense precludes further progress in the future, and, indeed, possibly lays down principles which may well be quoted on behalf of that progress in the future, and we hope the Bill may now be allowed to get its Second Reading.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next. — [Mr. Amery]

The remaining Government Orders mere read, and postponed.

Orders of the Day — ADJOURNMENT.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn." — [Sir G. Hennessy.]

Sir WILLIAM BULL: May I appeal to my hon. and gallant Friend to allow us an opportunity for the other Measures standing on the Order Paper to be put from the Chair?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I hope the hon. Baronet the Member for South Hammersmith (Sir W. Bull) will support me on other occasions when I raise a protest against this practice of the Government. I think it is intolerable that on a Friday, which is a day sacred to private Members, and especially so early in the year, the Government should move to adjourn the House while there is still another quarter of an hour to run. Surely the hon. and gallant Member on the Front Bench knows that there are certain Measures which are not opposed and which, by agreement, can be got through. Some of my Hon. Friends have brought in Measures of a non-controversial character, and it is extremely hard luck that the limited rights which private Members have in this Session should be further invaded in this way.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at a quarter before Four o'Clock until Monday next, 4th March.